The Road To New England: Illinois Is At Risk Of Losing Three Of Six Exelon Reactors

Back on February 4, 2012, I wrote a long rambling note regarding the effect natural gas would have on the energy future for the United States. In that note I quoted CarpeDiem:

But cheap gas has also thrown energy markets into turmoil. It is impossible for almost any other source of electric power to compete, especially coal and nuclear. By trimming fuel bills, cheap gas has reduced incentives for energy conservation and efficiency. And it has left solar and wind, despite their own falling costs, heavily dependent on government mandates in California and roughly 30 other states, including Maryland.

“Shale gas has changed the game in the United States,” said Paul Browning, head of General Electric’s thermal-products division, which makes gas turbines. “It is putting pressure on other power generation technologies.”

Crain's Chicago Business is reporting  (with a byline date of March 3, 2014, by the way) that Exelon may have to close three of six nuclear reactors that it operates in Illinois because they are struggling to make money.

In recent weeks, Exelon privately has said its large Byron nuclear plant in northwest Illinois is at risk along with the Quad Cities station in western Illinois and the downstate Clinton plant, which already had been identified as hardship cases, according to sources who've heard the company pitches.

Unlike Clinton and Quad Cities, Byron is one of Exelon's best-performing plants and one of its largest. Byron is licensed to run for another decade. The three plants together employ more than 2,300 with an annual payroll of $193 million, pay $51 million in taxes to localities and the state and provide enough electricity to light more than 4.2 million homes. 

It is interesting to read this story in light of the February, 2012, CarpeDiem and Washington Post articles linked above.