Nuclear energy advocates make final push to save plants in Byron, Dresden

BYRON - Nuclear energy advocates are urging legislators to pass a bill that would keep the Byron and Dresden plants open before the end of regular session Monday.

In August, Exelon Generation announced its plans to close both the Byron plant in September 2021 and Dresden the following November. The company said it faces revenue shortfalls of hundreds of millions of dollars because of declining energy prices and market rules that allow fossil fuel plants to underbid clean resources.

A coalition of 40 organizations recently sent a letter to Gov. JB Pritzker and members of the General Assembly urging them to do whatever is needed to keep the plants open and to pass the Climate Union Jobs Act.

Among the provisions, the bill would create 74 million megawatt-hours of carbon mitigation credits for Exelon’s Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, and LaSalle nuclear plants.

“The premature shuttering of these plants will materially undermine Illinois’ goal of zero-carbon electricity by 2030, increase electricity cost to consumers, eliminate over 1,500 well-paying union jobs, devastate communities that host the nuclear plants, and diminish the state’s economic vitality,” according to the letter. “We are urging you to do whatever is needed to keep all of the Illinois plants open.”

A month ago, Pritzker announced the Consumers and Climate First Act, which calls for achieving 100 percent clean energy generation in Illinois by 2050, that included limited subsidies for the plants, but Exelon CEO Chris Crane responded to the plan saying that it wasn’t adequate to sustain operations.

The Pritzker plan would provide compensation to Exelon at $1.00/MWh ($19 million per year) for Byron and $3.50/MWh ($52 million per year) for Dresden from 2021 through 2025.

The Byron plant has 717 regular employees, providing $97.5 million in payroll, and it was licensed to operate for another 20 years. Dresden has 804 employees and provides $104 million in local payroll.

According to preliminary 2020 data, nuclear power accounted for 57% of the state’s energy and 85% of the state’s carbon-free energy generation. Byron and Dresden provide 30% of the state’s carbon-free energy to 4 million homes.

State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, represents the 38th Senate District that includes nuclear stations in Morris, La Salle and Braidwood.

She has said that losing the two plants would create an immense hole in clean energy, one that would take 35 years for solar and wind production to fill.

The Byron plant provided $34 million in local tax revenue last year, with $19.1 million going to the Byron Community School District 226. That’s 74% of the district’s revenue.

The Byron Station Response Committee was established last year to help inform the public and fight the closures, and the group established saveilnuclearpower.com as a hub for people to get involved and spread awareness.