Exelon, which operates America's largest fleet of power reactors, continues to make the case that electricity markets and the policies that shape them undervalue nuclear plants' reliability and lack of carbon emissions.
Speaking to the U.S. Energy Association Wednesday, Chief Strategy Officer William A. Von Hoene Jr. said market-distorting policies may contribute to the early closure of as many as a quarter of U.S. nuclear plants if left unchanged. As an example, he cited market conditions in Illinois, where the utility reportedly told state legislators recently that its Byron, Quad Cities and Clinton plants are at risk of closure. He acknowledged that low natural gas prices and low load growth have been unfavorable for nuclear plants. Nonetheless, he said transmission bottlenecks and public policies like state renewable energy mandates and the federal production tax credit for wind power help push some areas' wholesale electricity prices to levels that make nuclear plants uncompetitive.
He went on to argue that reactor retirements would be harmful to the very environmental goals that renewable energy is meant to address. “We simply cannot achieve our emissions reduction goals without the U.S. nuclear fleet,” said Van Hoene. “The loss of 25 percent of existing nuclear facilities would cut U.S. progress toward achieving its 2020 climate change goals in half. In fact, closing even a few nuclear plants could make achieving state and national carbon reduction goals difficult or impossible.”