Wisconsin’s only operating nuclear power plant is Point Beach near Two Rivers. State lawmakers want to give the industry a boost.
Bipartisan momentum is growing in Wisconsin to bolster the state’s use of nuclear power with an expected rise in demand for electricity, despite past skepticism of the industry.
A group of lawmakers with members from both parties is interested in using state funding for nuclear research. They also want to give nuclear power the same clean-energy status as solar and wind power and, more generally, try to position Wisconsin as a leader in the sector.
Innovation that could create smaller, more nimble reactors and new technologies that produce cleaner, renewable power are years, if not decades, away. But proponents believe now is the time for Wisconsin to ensure the state’s residents can benefit.
“Timing is always important in politics, and it’s hard to put my finger on exactly why all the stars have aligned in 2025 for this to happen,” said Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, a pro-nuclear lawmaker. “But it’s happening.”
Wisconsin’s nuclear fortunes are reversing
Wisconsin generates around 16% of its electricity from its sole nuclear power plant, Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Two Rivers.
Those types of large plants generate power by splitting atoms apart, generating energy in the process.
But for years, those facilities, such as a now shuttered Wisconsin plant in Kewaunee, have been increasingly likely to close.
A rise in demand for electricity has reversed that trend. That increase is powered by data centers, which hold the servers powering the cat photos being stored in the cloud or the artificial intelligence tool in your web browser.
In Wisconsin, Microsoft broke ground on a planned data center in Mount Pleasant. Other, even larger projects, are being planned for Port Washington and Beaver Dam.
“Data centers need electricity all day, every day, not just when the sun’s shining or the wind’s blowing,” said Paul Wilson, who chairs the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering.
“There’s lots of ways to take advantage of those resources more in the state. I think we could do with more solar, more wind in Wisconsin. But if you want to be running a 24/7 operation with clean energy, nuclear (power) is really your best choice.”
Smaller, more nimble reactors are being developed across the country. That has piqued the interest of many utilities, who don’t want to front the billions of dollars required to build a larger facility.
Dairyland Power Cooperative provides electricity to around 500,000 customers in Wisconsin and three other states. In 2022, Dairyland announced it would partner with an Oregon-based nuclear company to explore how its smaller reactors could be deployed in the Upper Midwest.
“We’re not going to be one of the first movers,” said Jason Herbert, Dairyland’s vice president for external affairs. “I’d say we’re continuing to work with the industry and kind of do the evaluation and the due diligence and watching the projects that are moving forward.”
Tony Evers, GOP legislators target nuclear
Backers of nuclear power say Wisconsin needs to be ready as the industry shifts.
Steffen, the Republican legislator, has proposed funding a study to determine where additional reactors could be placed across Wisconsin, as well as requiring state regulators to move more quickly in approving or denying a new nuclear project. Gov. Tony Evers’ budget had a similar request.
“Frankly, we’re going to need more energy. It’s as simple as that,” Evers told the political news site WisPolitics last month. “We want to have it in a way that’s clean. Nuclear is probably one of the ways that we can get this done.”
Steffen also wants lawmakers to approve hosting a nuclear power summit in the state. And he said the state should be open to bringing back the Kewaunee nuclear plant, which is being decommissioned. A federal report last year identified the site as one that could house a new facility.
“It’s going to be an all-of-the-above approach when it comes to nuclear,” Steffen said.
Wilson, from UW-Madison, is pessimistic that it would be worthwhile to revive the Kewaunee plant.
But he said, more broadly, it makes sense for Wisconsin to get involved in this space. Other states, such as Tennessee, have set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to attract nuclear firms.
Steffen has pushed to include language in a separate, larger energy bill that would place nuclear power in a privileged class of energy sources in state law, a status currently reserved for wind and solar energy. That could make nuclear projects more attractive to investors.
“When you shut down a nuclear power plant anywhere in the country, you burn more fossil fuels,” Wilson said. “So recognizing that, many states have said, well, there’s no point in making this job harder for ourselves. So let’s give nuclear some clean energy credit and allow it to be a little more competitive in that sense.”
Nuclear fusion on the rise in Dane County
At the same time, researchers and entrepreneurs are attempting to make Wisconsin and Dane County a center for an emerging type of nuclear technology called fusion.
Fusion attempts to mirror how stars are fueled. It involves nuclear particles merging, generating significant amounts of energy. Boosters of the concept say that, if harnessed, nuclear fusion can provide effectively limitless clean energy in a more efficient way.
UW-Madison research has spawned firms working on fusion technologies in the area, with the hope to bring products to market in the next decade or two.
“What Detroit was to the automobile industry in the 1950s, what Houston is to the oil and gas industry today, we’d like to see Wisconsin be that global hub for the fusion industry in the 21st century,” Kieran Furlong, CEO and co-founder of Realta Fusion in Madison, told legislators last year.
A survey from the Pew Research Center found that 56% of Americans favor more nuclear power. In 2016, that number was only 43%.
Renewable energy groups have had a historically uneasy relationship with the industry, as it creates radioactive waste that must be disposed of in some fashion. That has led to opposition to the notion of nuclear power as clean.
But Herbert, of Dairyland Power Cooperative, said the realities of climate change have changed the attitudes of some nuclear energy critics and led to growing bipartisan interest.
“It’s a very interesting time,” he said. “I mean, I think in the last 10 years, there just has been a big shift.”
Source: The Cap Times
