This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/how-wisconsin-could-triple-its-nuclear-power/

Federal report touts nuclear power plant sites, including Kewaunee, as ‘ideal’ for new reactors

A federal report this month is touting two Wisconsin nuclear power plant sites — one operating, one shut down — as attractive locations for installing new nuclear electric generating plants.

Department of Energy researchers evaluated 54 operating nuclear power plants nationwide and another 11 recently retired plants as potential sites for new reactors.  Such sites would be “ideal places to start building new reactors,” a DOE statement put it, because “communities surrounding these plants already support nuclear energy,” and because infrastructure needed to connect a plant to the power transmission grid already is in place.

The report does not specifically name either Wisconsin site — or, for that matter, most sites in other states — but Wisconsin has one currently operating nuclear power plant, Point Beach Nuclear Plant, 9 miles north of Two Rivers, and one closed but intact plant, Kewaunee Power Station, about 4 miles north of that.

Point Beach, which has two reactors now, can produce about 1,200 megawatts of electricity and supplies about 16% of the power used in Wisconsin. Kewaunee, with one reactor, had about half that capacity, and was closed in 2013.

The report comes as nuclear power seems to be getting new attention.

In Michigan, a nuclear power plant that closed in 2022 may be restarted after the state’s Democrat governor reversed course a month before the shutdown and began supporting the continued use for the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station. The plant’s owner, a decommissioning company, secured a $1.5 billion federal loan to cover recommissioning costs, and it lined up a customer for the power.

Meanwhile, the Midwest Independent System Operator, or MISO, which shifts electricity between utilities in the upper Midwest to meet demand, warned this summer that the region’s power supply could fall short by 1 to 3.7 gigawatts next summer,  due to member utilities shutting down large coal-fired power plants as they add generating capacity from intermittent sources such as wind turbines and solar panels.  Wisconsin utilities have delayed plans to close coal-fired plants amid the looming shortages.

The DOE report identified 20 existing nuclear plants where operators already had canceled plans for more generating capacity or sought Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing for new reactors and a total of 41 plants with capacity either for a large “advanced” reactor of the kind that just went into operation in Georgia, or a smaller “advanced” reactor about the size of each of Point Beach’s existing units. Either Wisconsin site, the report indicates, could accommodate either size.

The report’s authors calculate that if all the sites’ potential were used, it could add as much as 95 gigawatts of generating capacity nationwide — about 80 times the current capacity of Point Beach. The report suggests that Wisconsin could triple its nuclear-powered electric output by adding reactors to the two sites.

A third and much smaller nuclear power plant, the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor near Genoa, was closed in 1987, and its plant and equipment have been entirely removed. It did not figure in the DOE report.

The report also tallied up the number of coal-fired power plant sites that have the infrastructure to host new nuclear power plants. None were in Wisconsin.

The analysis involves only the possibility of conventional reactors, mentioning the Westinghouse AP1000 design; “advanced” refers to evolutionary design changes. The analysis did not include “small modular reactors,” a newer design only recently certified by federal regulators and not yet commercially deployed. La Crosse-based Dairyland Power Cooperative has separately said it’s looking at the possibility of using small modular reactors in Wisconsin.

The report doesn’t offer any federal funding, promise any new regulatory pathway or make any other commitment to new nuclear plants.

But the report is a signal of official interest in nuclear power’s potential as an electricity source — one that emits no carbon dioxide while producing power much more reliably than do wind turbines or solar panels. The Biden administration’s acting assistant secretary for the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Michael Goff, called attention to the study in a statement that also touted an online tool to quantify ways of reducing the capital costs of building nuclear power plants.

Patrick McIlheran is the Director of Policy at the Badger Institute.

Any use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written permission. To request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at mike@badgerinstitute.org or 262-389-8239.

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