Report: U.S. Could Get More Power from Nuclear Plants
The U.S. could get the equivalent power generation of nine more nuclear reactors out of its existing nuclear fleet, according to a new report (POLITICO Pro, subscription).
What’s going on: An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute released late last week “lays out three strategies for expanding the capacity of the existing fleet: restarting old power plants, increasing the power generation from existing plants and extending licenses for nuclear plants.”
- Adding more nuclear power to stabilize a national electric grid strained by increased electrification and use of artificial intelligence has become “a stronger bipartisan priority” in Congress.
What could be done: Three of the nation’s 54 nuclear plants “are eligible for restarts: The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, the former Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, newly dubbed the Crane Clean Energy Center, and the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa.”
- In September, Microsoft agreed to purchase power from a partly reopened Three Mile Island, scheduled for a 2028 restart by Constellation Energy.
- That same month, the Biden administration finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to reopen the Palisades plant, which has been closed since 2022.
- Getting these plants back online could give the U.S. 2.4 gigawatts of power, according to the EPRI report, while uprates—increasing existing plants’ capacity—could boost nuclear power generation by as much as 8 gigawatts.
Another power booster: “EPRI found that extending the life of U.S. reactors to 80 years would keep the majority of the fleet operating beyond 2050.”
- The average age of an American nuclear reactor is 42 years.