State legislation: Iowa governor pushing nuclear power
A pair of bills working their way through the Iowa statehouse aim to promote nuclear energy projects in the state—in part by changing how the plants would be regulated and funded.
Reynolds
In her energy plan, Gov. Kim Reynolds has committed to an all-of-the-above energy strategy to meet growing demand. Among the strategies in her plan is the creation of a Nuclear Energy Task Force to make recommendations about adding nuclear—especially small modular reactors—to expand the state’s energy portfolio.
Reynolds proposed House Study Bill 123 and Senate Study Bill 1112, which share this language:
“Ensuring reliable electric service and providing economic benefits may require public utilities to consider diverse electric power generating technologies and energy storage technologies, including alternate energy production facilities, nuclear reactors, and energy storage facilities.”
“It is also the intent of the general assembly to encourage the development of nuclear electric power generation within the state using nuclear reactors and to use nuclear power to meet local and regional electric needs.”
A closer look: Iowa Utility Association executive director spoke recently to the Business Record, saying that Reynolds’s energy plan toes the line between Iowa’s energy producers and regulators, a compromise five years in the making.
The state needs a more diverse energy mix to support economic development, especially data centers and industrial manufacturing, Allen continued.
“If you just look at the change from 2018 to today, when [NextEra Energy] started the phaseout of [Duane Arnold] in Palo, the nuclear power plant, and the need for that plant, and now there’s a possibility of that plant coming back on line, that’s the change,” he said.
Existing nuclear: Iowa may also have a “new” energy source to help with rising demand for electricity. In January, NextEra filed a license change request with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a critical first step in bringing the 622-MW unit at Duane Arnold back on line.
NextEra CEO John Ketchum, at the time on the company’s year-end earnings call, said recommissioning the plant could be achieved by late 2028, if the company decides to move forward with plans.
Iowa’s lone nuclear plant, Duane Arnold was shuttered in October 2020 after NextEra’s power purchase agreement with key customer Alliant Energy ended. The plant first came on line in 1975 and was licensed to operate until 2034, but the company closed the plant early due to cost-competitiveness issues in the energy market.
Now, NextEra may follow in the steps of Constellation and Holtec, which are working to restart the Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly Three Mile Island-1) in Pennsylvania, and Palisades in Michigan, respectively.
Quotable: Peter Orazem, an economist and professor emeritus at Iowa State University, explained Iowa’s draw for technology companies to CBS affiliate KGAN in Cedar Rapids, Ia.
“Iowa has a couple resources that are extremely important to data centers. Number one is [the centers are] very energy intensive, and so the fact that Iowa has access to relatively inexpensive renewable electricity makes Iowa attractive. Secondly, Iowa has a lot of land and not that many people,” Orazem said.
A typical data center, Orazem told the news outlet, “may have around a million square feet of space and maybe 30 employees.
“Independent of the data centers, nuclear seems to be one of the logical ways of providing a clean source of baseline energy generation,” Orazem added. “Nuclear always has some risks, but all energy generation has some risk. Once again, the issue is, do we think technologically that we can mitigate that risk?”
This story is the first in an ongoing series spotlighting various state legislative efforts to expand nuclear. Check Nuclear Newswire for future stories in the series.
