Kewaunee Power Station Closes Permanently

Wisconsin is down to just one operating commercial nuclear power plant, after yesterday’s apparently permanent shutdown of the Kewaunee Power Station.

The Kewaunee nuclear plant produced electricity for 40 years. For the last six years, Virginia-based Dominion has owned the plant. Dominion vice president Daniel Stoddard says Tuesday’s end to power generation at Kewaunee only took a few hours.

Stoddard continues to blame a changing electricity market, and not government over-regulation, for the shutdown. He says Dominion considered just mothballing the plant for a few years until electricity prices get better, but decided instead on a permanent shutdown.

Stoddard says the nuclear waste from Kewaunee may have to stay on-site for up to 60 years, unless the company decides on a faster timeline. But he also says the federal government lives up to a long promise to take the waste to a regional or national repository: “I do fully expect that to occur, but regardless we can take care of the used fuel here.”

Tear-down of the plant is not expected until the most radioactive of the spent fuel is moved into concrete and steel casks, at least six or seven years from now.

Stoddard says talks continue with Carlton, the Kewaunee County town where the plant is located, about shutdown costs the community is facing. But he refuses to say how the negotiations are going.