Xcel Energy says nuclear energy key part of carbon-free goals

Xcel Energy, which has a goal of delivering 100 percent carbon-free electricity to its customers by 2050, said nuclear energy is a key part of achieving that strategy, according to a recent post from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).

Xcel Energy Chairman, President and CEO Ben Fowke said the company plans to keep its existing nuclear plants – Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant near Monticello, Minn., and Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant near Red Wing, Minn. – open to help meet the carbon-reduction goals.

“An early retirement of those plants would totally set us back,” Fowke told Bloomberg in an interview after the company’s announcement. “If you are shutting down your coal fleet, it’s pretty hard to shut down your nuclear fleet at the same time and still offer reliable power to customers.”

These two nuclear power plants produce nearly 30 percent of the electricity the utility provides to customers in the Upper Midwest. Further, they generate 51 percent of the state’s emission-free electricity. Also, Minnesota customers’ average electricity bill is also 22 percent below the national average.

In addition, the plants employ nearly 1,400 people full-time as well as hundreds of specialized contractors.

Several industry organizations, environmentalist groups, and tech companies also support nuclear energy as a key piece of the climate solution, NEI said. One of them is the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“These sobering realities dictate that we keep an open mind about all of the tools in the emissions reduction toolbox — even ones that are not our personal favorites,” Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a blog post last month. “And that includes existing nuclear power plants in the United States, which currently supply about 20 percent of our total electricity needs and more than half of our low-carbon electricity supply.”