Catch the latest energy news from around the region. Check back for these bimonthly Energy News Roundups.
The first small modular nuclear reactor in the Great Lakes region just got the green light to start construction — in Ontario. Part of Ontario Power Generation’s $20.9 billion plan to build four such reactors beside the Darlington nuclear power plant, near Toronto, over the next decade, the 300-megawatt reactor could go live as soon as 2030. Ontario generates roughly half of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and the province has embraced the nuclear power sector’s recent shift toward smaller reactors with more flexible output. GE Vernova Hitachi, the company that designed the reactor, said it will be the first of its kind built “in the Western world.”
In the United States, farther from the Great Lakes, the Tennessee Valley Authority yesterday became the first utility in the country to apply for federal permission to build a small nuclear reactor.
As work continues to restart Michigan’s Palisades nuclear power plant, another shuttered nuclear plant is back in the spotlight, this time in northeastern Wisconsin. Utah-based EnergySolutions, owner of the Kewaunee Power Station on the Lake Michigan coastline, announced last week that it is working with the parent company of multiple Wisconsin electric utilities to explore “new nuclear generation” at the site. The Kewaunee facility shuttered in 2013. EnergySolutions won permission to acquire it in 2022.
The announcement in Wisconsin comes amid emerging bipartisan support for nuclear power development there. Wisconsin only has one nuclear power plant still in operation. A Republican-led bill, introduced in March and backed by a number of utilities and unions, would direct state regulators to conduct a nuclear power siting study. Separately, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed $1 million for a “nuclear power plant feasibility study” in his 2025-2027 state budget.
The Indiana agency that represents ratepayers’ interests recently came out against a utility’s plan to retire two coal-powered units and replace them with natural gas. Duke Energy wants to close both of the 50-some-year-old coal units at the Cayuga Energy Complex, in the western part of the state, by 2030, at an estimated cost of $3.3 billion. But the energy division director of the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, Brian Latham, said in written testimony that it is “ill-advised” to invest so much money in new natural gas units “when the public policy landscape is resoundingly reexamining environmental regulations, coal unit retirements, and the status of alternative generation sources.”
And a Dakota Tribe and a Minnesota electric cooperative are facing off over a solar array. The Upper Sioux Community has nearly completed a solar array to help power its casino and hotel. Minnesota Valley Cooperative Light and Power Association says the solar array is too big to operate in its service area, and it will stop serving the complex if the array is turned on. Upper Sioux is arguing that the utility’s standards don’t apply to the reservation and has asked state regulators to intervene.
More energy news, in case you missed it:
- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill ending the coal subsidies created by the state’s infamous 2019 nuclear bailout law.
- Cleveland-Cliffs, a major U.S. steel producer based in Ohio, said it is scaling back plans to use hydrogen to decarbonize its operations.
- Experts and advocates say aging Michigan dams remain an “infrastructure time bomb” five years after the Edenville dam failure.
- A Canadian electric minibus company intends to open its first U.S. assembly plant in central Illinois.
- Canada’s largest operating battery storage facility, the 1,000-megawatt-hour Oneida Energy Storage Project, was recently completed in Ontario.
Catch more news at Great Lakes Now:
After six years, Ohio moves to end coal bailouts that have been in place since bribery scandal
In Indiana, natural gas is clean energy now
Featured image: A powerplant with smokestacks belches smoke into the air. (Photo Credit: GLN)
