Threatening closure of Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, Exelon says Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs plant remains viable
Exelon Corp. said Tuesday that it will close the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 2019, a decade and a half ahead of its scheduled retirement, unless state officials there offer clean-energy subsidies to nuclear generation.
The company’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Southern Maryland is meanwhile “not currently among those plants identified as being at risk financially,” and therefore Exelon does not plan to seek similar clean-energy incentives in this state, spokesman Paul Adams said.
Energy industry experts said that doesn’t mean similar economic troubles aren’t ahead for the Lusby facility, however.
Three Mile Island, site of a 1979 partial meltdown that was the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history, and other nuclear plants across Pennsylvania generate nearly all of the state’s carbon-free energy supply, Exelon officials said. Yet an influx of power to the grid from natural gas-fired plants — and, to a lesser extent, wind and solar — is cutting into power prices and making the Susquehanna River facility 30 miles north of the Maryland line lose money, they said.
The closure decision comes amid a growing debate over what sorts of power plants deserve “green” energy incentives, usually in the form of mandates requiring utilities to buy renewable energy, and whether states should step in to preserve nuclear jobs — and carbon-free power.
Exelon CEO Chris Crane called the company’s position an opportunity for Pennsylvania “to take a leadership role by implementing a policy solution to preserve its nuclear energy facilities and the clean, reliable energy and good-paying jobs they provide.”
New York and Illinois, where Exelon also owns fleets of aged nuclear reactors, already have passed legislation giving those plants incentives similar to those of wind and solar farms.
While nuclear power doesn’t generate greenhouse gases, renewable energy advocates say they don’t consider it “clean” and argue that subsidies earmarked for renewable power should be reserved for newer, less proven electricity sources.
Exelon CEO Chris Crane called the company’s position an opportunity for Pennsylvania “to take a leadership role by implementing a policy solution to preserve its nuclear energy facilities and the clean, reliable energy and good-paying jobs they provide.”
New York and Illinois, where Exelon also owns fleets of aged nuclear reactors, already have passed legislation giving those plants incentives similar to those of wind and solar farms.
While nuclear power doesn’t generate greenhouse gases, renewable energy advocates say they don’t consider it “clean” and argue that subsidies earmarked for renewable power should be reserved for newer, less proven electricity sources.
