By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
Another one bites the dust: Another nuclear plant is going offline – this one five years earlier than planned – at least in part thanks to the power of four nearby wind plants, which will partially replace the generating power of the nuclear facility.
NextEra’s Energy has decided to close the 615 MW Duane Arnold Energy Center (DAEC) five years prior to its expected decommissioning in part because the energy conglomerate can sell power from its four wind plants more inexpensively and cleanly. The company supplies energy for Alliant Energy, which supplies electricity to customers in Iowa and Wisconsin.
The four wind farms will replace 340 MW of the generation capacity, and Alliant plans to build its own wind plants in Iowa to make up the rest.
What makes the decision most remarkable is that it comes against the backdrop of plans being hatched in Washington D.C. to interfere in the nuclear market and prop up uneconomic nuclear and coal plants using national taxpayer money to do it. Estimates on what the bailout will cost vary, but some experts have put the number as high as $34 billion. It’s worth asking the denizens at the Department of Energy why they feel it’s important to keep these plants open when the companies on the ground – like NextEra and Alliant – are obviously perfectly OK with closing the plant.
Heck, Alliant is even paying NextEra $110 million in September 2020 to ensure the plant closes five years before its power-purchase agreement (PPA) with the plant runs out. So what on Earth are the regulators and politicians in Washington thinking?
Stories like this one out of Iowa need to be heard at the highest levels of our government in the hopes that the harebrained bailout scheme can still be headed off. Senators and Congressmen need to be held accountable for trying to pick winners and losers in the electricity generation game. Otherwise, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites paying off their donors.