The utility company Exelon announced Wednesday it is moving ahead with its planned shutdown of Three Mile Island, the site of the nation’s worst-ever nuclear reactor accident, because Pennsylvania lawmakers will not provide financial subsidies to keep it open.
The Pennsylvania nuclear plant, like others across the country, is losing money because of competition from cheap natural gas, wind, and solar.
Exelon said Three Mile Island will prematurely shut down by Sept. 30, as the company announced in May 2017. The plant had a license to operate through 2034.
The company had hoped Pennsylvania lawmakers would provide financial incentives to the plant in recognition of the value of nuclear’s ability to provide zero-carbon electricity.
But the Pennsylvania Legislature has not advanced a proposed $500 million rescue package for Three Mile Island and the state’s four other nuclear power plants, with opponents deriding the measure as a “bailout.”
“Today is a difficult day for our employees, who were hopeful that state policymakers would support valuing carbon-free nuclear energy the same way they value other forms of clean energy in time to save TMI from a premature closure,” said Bryan Hanson, Exelon senior vice president and chief nuclear officer.
Three Mile Island was the site of a 1979 partial meltdown that chilled nuclear plant development for years afterward.
The plant’s closure continues a spate of bad news for nuclear energy.
Only one new reactor has been completed in the last three decades in the United States, with recent projects canceled or delayed because of mounting expenses.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry in March issued a $3.7 billion federally backed loan guarantee to keep the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia afloat after years of cost overruns and project delays. It is the only reactor under construction in the U.S.
Federal lawmakers in both parties and some states have warned that the closure of nuclear plants will harm efforts to combat climate change.
Nuclear energy provides almost 60% of the country’s carbon-free electricity, more than all other zero-carbon sources combined.
Illinois, New York, and New Jersey are among the states that have moved to compensate nuclear plants to keep them operating for their zero-carbon value.
Federal energy regulators, meanwhile, rejected a Trump administration plan in 2018 to subsidize struggling nuclear and coal plants.
