A SENIOR OFFICIAL WITH America’s largest nuclear plant operating company is predicting a dim future for nuclear power in the U.S.
William Von Hoene, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Exelon, said last week that he doesn’t foresee any new nuclear plants being built in the United States due to their high operating costs.
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If the existing nuclear units in the U.S. can continue to operate and the technology can be developed to store energy created by renewable resources, despite the current economic issues, “then we won’t need” new nuclear units and “we won’t build them because they’ll be too expensive,” he said.
Exelon currently operates 23 reactors. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. has 61 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 99 nuclear reactors in 30 states. Together, they account for about 20 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S., per the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Von Hoene described nuclear power as “a bridge to a different kind of carbon-free world.”
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Von Hoene says because of nuclear plants’ sizes and the security required to monitor them, the costs become prohibitive.
Read more at Exelon official: no new nuclear plants to be built in the US
