{"id":16568,"date":"2025-05-15T19:43:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16568"},"modified":"2025-05-15T19:58:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:58:52","slug":"kewaunee-power-possibility-adds-to-wisconsin-nuclear-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16568","title":{"rendered":"Kewaunee power possibility adds to Wisconsin nuclear trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/kewaunee-power-possibility-adds-to-wisconsin-nuclear-trend\/<\/a><\/p>\n

A possibility that the Badger Institute reported on last fall moved a little closer to reality this week as the owner of a now-shuttered nuclear power plant near Kewaunee announced it was seeking a license<\/a> that could let it reopen the plant.<\/p>\n

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The Utah-based Energy Solutions, which bought the Kewaunee Power Station in 2022 with plans to decommission the plant, said Tuesday<\/a> that it would start planning and studies needed for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that could let it reopen the 566-megawatt plant<\/a>. The company, which said it is working with the parent of utilities We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service, cited \u201crising energy demand driven by data centers\u201d as driving \u201cthe need for reliable, carbon-free power.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plant closed in 2013, leaving the Point Beach Nuclear Plant as Wisconsin\u2019s only operating nuclear power station.<\/p>\n

The Kewaunee site was among those mentioned in a study last year<\/a> by the Biden administration\u2019s Energy Department of locations where new nuclear power technology \u2014 either improved \u201cadvanced nuclear\u201d reactors already being deployed around the world or \u201csmall modular reactors\u201d now in development \u2014 could be sited.<\/p>\n

The study was driven by projected demand from planned data centers, including in Wisconsin<\/a>. The expected increase in demand comes even as \u2014 as a consortium of large-scale Wisconsin electricity customers told regulators last year<\/a> \u2014 \u201cWisconsin utilities are dramatically reducing electricity capacity through the voluntary, premature retirement of baseload generation,\u201d and they are replacing them with intermittent sources of electricity, generally plantations of wind turbines and solar panels.<\/p>\n

Nuclear power plants are consistently more reliable producers<\/a> of electricity than plants using other fuels.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin legislators praised the latest development.\u00a0 \u201cKewaunee is the perfect first place to bring next generation nuclear,\u201d state Rep. Dave Steffen (R-Howard) told Wisconsin Public Radio<\/a>, citing its existing infrastructure and connections to power lines, considerations cited by the 2024 Energy Department report.<\/p>\n

Steffen is one of the authors, along with state Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin), of a resolution putting Wisconsin\u2019s government on-record<\/a> as supporting nuclear power.<\/p>\n

The Badger Institute supports the resolution.<\/p>\n

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