August 7, 2013 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Duke Energy has announced that it will retire its Levy nuclear reactor project in Florida. This is the second such announcement in just a few weeks.

Credit: Stefan Kühn/Wikimedia Commons

"The Duke decision to pull the plug on Levy follows by just one day the announcement that the French-subsidized nuclear giant EDF is pulling out of the U.S. nuclear power market due to the inability of nuclear power to compete with alternatives and the dramatic reduction in demand growth caused by increasing efficiency of electricity consuming devices," Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School. Cooper recently forecast that three dozen reactors are at risk of early retirement.

Exelon, the largest U.S. nuclear operator, recently purchased the nuclear assets of Constellation in an effort to lower the operating costs of its nuclear assets. Entergy, the second largest nuclear operator, has reorganized its nuclear assets and is cutting staffing.

Recently, the industry has seen the shutdown of four reactors -- San Onofre (2 reactors) in California, Kewaunee in Wisconsin, and Crystal River in Florida – as well as the end of five large planned 'uprate' expansion projects -- Prairie Island in Minnesota, LaSalle (2 reactors) in Illinois, and Limerick (2 reactors) in Pennsylvania.

This is nothing less than the rapid-fire downsizing of nuclear power in the United States, according to Cooper, and the tough times are only going to get worse.

Florida is the first state to have both a reactor retired early and a cancelled new reactor since the beginning of the "nuclear renaissance." The nuclear experience in Florida should not only be a permanent reminder to policy makers across the nation, but should be a "loud call to move beyond the antiquated concept of base load generation," Cooper says.

Recent nuclear developments nationwide have sent shock waves through the industry and Wall Street.

"The spate of early retirements and decisions to forego uprates magnify the importance of the fact that the 'nuclear renaissance' has failed to produce a new fleet of reactors in the U.S.," Cooper said. "With little chance that the cost of new reactors will become competitive with low carbon alternatives in the time frame relevant for old reactor retirement decisions, we need to start preparing now for more early retirements or the threats of such retirements." 

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