Energy security

The simple argument for keeping nuclear power plants open

Coal and nuclear (“baseload”) power plants are getting the shit kicked out of them in energy markets. Coal plants are retiring faster than ever, despite President Trump’s bluster, and nuclear plants are going down with them, largely for the same reasons. It’s difficult for big, slow, always-on power plants to compete on a grid being flooded with cheap, nimble natural gas and renewables. (For a deep dive into what’s affecting the profitability of PJM’s nuclear fleet, see this paper from Jesse Jenkins. Spoiler: It’s mostly natural gas.)

There is, of course, an obvious justification for efforts to save nuclear plants: They offer carbon-free energy in a time when it is desperately needed. But in Ohio and Pennsylvania, there is no policy mechanism to compensate the plants for that value. New York figured out a way to do it with zero-carbon energy credits (ZECs), but PJM’s plants are not similarly blessed.

Since there’s no prospect of saving nuclear plants for the right reason, their owners, and PJM, are pressing to save them for the wrong reasons. The Trump administration and the generation companies are now advancing the argument that “baseload” plants (a silly and outmoded term) are needed for grid resilience and should be compensated for that.