CHICAGO — Illinois has opened the door to a new era of nuclear energy generation, but a question remains: Where would new nuclear power plants go?
It’s an issue that Gov. JB Pritzker directed state agencies to explore this spring, when he signed his first executive order of the year and as the state seeks to stave off projected energy shortfalls that could spur higher energy prices and jeopardize reliability in coming years.
The goal of the order was to bring at least two gigawatts more energy online, enough to power up to 2 million homes or 20 large data centers.
Illinois took its first official step back into nuclear energy when Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act this January, lifting a nearly four-decade ban on building new large-scale nuclear power plants.
That moratorium was signed in 1987 by then-Gov. James Thompson as the U.S. looked for solutions to safely store radioactive nuclear waste. The same year, the passage of the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act had tasked the U.S. Department of Energy with evaluating a potential site to bury all the nation’s nuclear waste deep underground.
Nevada’s Yucca Mountain was designated as the most promising location, but the plan was not well-received by residents of the Silver State, which did not have any commercial nuclear reactors of its own. Fulfilling a campaign promise, then-President Barack Obama cut funding to the project in 2009 and the following year his administration halted its license review, effectively killing the project.
Illinois’ ban on new nuclear plants was meant to last until the federal government implemented a solution for nuclear waste storage.
Spent nuclear fuel is stored primarily onsite at the state’s six power plants in water-filled pools and dry storage casks, an indefinite extension of what was originally supposed to be a short-term solution.
Those six plants host 11 reactors that still generate over half of the electricity produced in the state.
But nearly 40 years later and no closer to an answer, lawmakers lifted the ban on new large-scale nuclear plants; the state had previously lifted a moratorium in 2023 on construction of small modular reactors generating less than 300 megawatts, though there are none commercially available in the U.S.
“The executive order was an important acknowledgement that nuclear energy must be part of the Illinois future,” said Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, who has long been a proponent of lifting the moratorium. “The conversation has shifted from whether we need nuclear to how we get the projects built.”
NUCLEAR COMMUNITIES
Now, as the state looks to kickstart nuclear development, it’s beginning conversations about where new plants would go.
To that end, Pritzker directed state agencies to begin soliciting interest from communities open to hosting new nuclear facilities, as well as developers who may consider building and operating them.
Ultimately, leaders from nine communities around the state expressed interest in bringing new nuclear reactors to town. The letters are not a definitive declaration that any specific nuclear proposal has been accepted or received zoning approval, but rather the beginning of further conversations.
About half of Illinois’ baseload power comes from nuclear generation, and Pritzker said at a quantum technology forum earlier this week that the prevalence of the technology has made finding sites for potential development easier in Illinois.
“We don’t have the problem where people are saying, ‘Well, I don’t know about nuclear … we don’t want that near where we live,’” he said. “Guess what? We have 11, you know, we have major power plants all across northern Illinois, and people are like, ‘sure you can build another power plant nearby.’”
So, what communities are holding the door open to nuclear, and why?
Of the nine Illinois communities that responded, six are those that already host nuclear: the city of Marseilles and the counties of DeWitt, Grundy, Ogle, Rock Island and Will.
Two more are counties that have lived alongside large-scale power plants of another type: coal. Those are Peoria County, which saw its coal-fired power plant decommissioned in 2022, and Jasper County, which is set to see its coal plant decommissioned next year.
The final response came from the Illinois Nuclear Power Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which is seeking a microreactor for research and workforce training purposes. The energy capacity generated by the reactor UIUC seeks, a maximum of 45 megawatts, would not contribute directly to the state’s energy utilization goals, but UIUC argued it would strengthen the state’s position as a national nuclear leader.
Bringing new nuclear to all nine sites would not be necessary to meet Pritzker’s two-gigawatt goal; that could likely be achieved by building just two new power plants. Constellation, the operator of all six of Illinois’ existing plants, estimated it could add 500 megawatts, a quarter of the total goal, to the grid through upgrades on current sites alone.
JOBS, TAXES
AND ENERGYIn their response letters, many of the communities mentioned the potential for new high-paying jobs and long-term tax base stability as economic development priorities that drew them to pursuing nuclear.
DeWitt County Board Chair Joe Witte said supporting the county’s existing relationship with Constellation, which has long operated the Clinton nuclear plant there and currently employs over 500 people, was also a priority.
“They’ve been a great economic partner,” Witte told Capitol News Illinois. “Beyond just the jobs, I think they’ve been a great community partner as far as supporting a lot of our nonprofits. They host a lot of events. They sponsor events like blood drives and local festivals.”
Those longstanding community partnerships, along with the economic impact and safety record at Clinton, have fostered goodwill and strong local support for nuclear projects, according to DeWitt County’s interest letter.
All the responses touted existing utility-scale infrastructure, skilled workforce bases and residents’ familiarity with living side-by-side with large-scale energy generation.
Officials from the counties ending coal production expressed pride in their regions’ roles in energy production. Both counties proposed the site of their coal power plants as potential locations to house new nuclear, as they have appropriate zoning, space, water resources and existing transmission lines.
Jasper County Board Chairman Jason Warfel said his community had been an energy producer for his entire lifetime. He doesn’t want to see that go away.
“We see this as an opportunity really to continue that legacy rather than losing our place in Illinois’ energy future,” Warfel told Capitol News Illinois. “With the advent of AI, these data centers, the amount of energy production that’s being required now is concerning for individuals because the potential of blackouts, brownouts. Jasper County can be part of that solution.”
For Peoria County Administrator Scott Sorrel, it’s especially important for downstate counties to be part of the energy solution.
While ComEd customers in northern Illinois see energy prices set through auction by the grid administrator PJM, most Ameren Illinois customers in central and southern parts of the state rely on the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO.
Of Illinois’ six nuclear plants and 11 reactors, only Clinton’s single reactor is on the MISO grid.
“MISO has a need for that power just as much as PJM does, and I think it behooves all of Illinois to not just think of the power needs within the PJM-Chicagoland area, but to look at the power needs across the entire state,” Sorrel told Capitol News Illinois. “All of us have needs to try and have affordable power for the buildings we work in and the homes we live in, and the more generation that can be brought online, whether it be solar, wind, nuclear, the better off we’re going to be.”
TIME AND MONEYDeWitt County’s Clinton plant is often cited as a top candidate for further nuclear development, as the current site is already owned by Constellation. It is the only single-reactor plant in the state, whereas the rest have two.
Constellation has also already obtained an early site permit from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees nuclear plants. The preapproval effectively reserves the land for future nuclear development for the next two decades, with options to renew further, according to DeWitt County’s letter.
But even at a site with all the preapprovals lined up, it will take time to bring new nuclear energy online.
Jennifer Walling, CEO of the Illinois Environmental Council, an environmental advocacy group, estimated it would take 20 years to see a new large-scale nuclear plant materialize, or 10-15 years for small modular reactors that are still largely in development. And, she said, the cost could be high.
The last nuclear plant built in the U.S. was the Vogtle plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, which came online in 2023, seven years later than planned and $17 billion over budget. Ratepayers were on the hook for over $7.5 billion of that spending, raising residential energy bills by 10%.
To Walling, new nuclear doesn’t meet the urgency of Illinois’ energy needs, due to the financial and time constraints of building it. Three state agencies issued a report late last year that predicted shortfalls could hit northern Illinois by 2029 and the rest of the state by 2031 if the state doesn’t implement policy changes.
“You’re definitely looking at something that’s going to take a while, and this is a short-term crisis that’s happening,” Walling said. “Any proposal to build new nuclear should really look deeply at how it’s going to affect ratepayers. What is the real cost going to be?”
Meanwhile, environmental and consumer advocates say the opportunities for renewables and battery storage are outpacing what nuclear can offer on costs.
For example, a boom in solar development led Peoria County to approve 37 permits for solar farms from 2017 to 2024, bringing in new taxes to support local school districts. A single wind farm in Henry County brought over 200 jobs and was estimated to contribute over $25 million in property taxes.
And those projects can be faster to deploy; solar and battery storage projects can be built in 12-18 months, and wind projects about two years, according to the Wall Street Journal. The delay in getting renewable energy online, however, has largely happened at the grid operator level.
“Beginning to mid of my tenure in the General Assembly, people pretty much viewed renewables and environmentally sustainable energy as kind of an extra, kind of a nice thing, not a big business,” Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, said. “But now wind and solar and storage are big business. They’re creating jobs. They’re giving back to communities.”
NEW TECH, DEVELOPER CONSTRAINTSMany advocates of nuclear are hoping to see the emergence of small modular reactors, advanced reactors that are much smaller in scale than full-sized nuclear plants and can be pre-manufactured in factories and then shipped and installed on site. They generate around 300 megawatts of energy, nearly a third of traditional nuclear reactors.
Currently, there are only two small modular reactors, or SMRs, commercially operating in the world, one in Russia and one in China, though there are dozens more designs in development and four in advanced stages of construction, though none operating commercially for energy production in the U.S.
Consumer advocates aren’t optimistic they’ll materialize in time to be a silver bullet for Illinois.
“I would love for some new nuclear technology like SMRs to have a breakthrough, and suddenly we’re building nuclear reactors in three years and they’re cost competitive,” said Nick Wallace, an attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center. “That would be fantastic. The history of the nuclear industry makes me very skeptical that that’s going to happen because we haven’t successfully built a new nuclear reactor on-budget and in a timely fashion in 40 years or something.”
Developers themselves are mixed on the issue. Of the three responses the state received, two were from companies proposing SMRs. One of those was NANO Nuclear Energy, which has entered formal agreements with the University of Illinois for the micro modular research reactor.
Another developer, Blue Energy Global Inc., submitted a letter outlining a proposal to bring 3-5 SMRs. The 24-page letter had over 170 redactions.
“As (SMRs) have yet to be deployed commercially in the U.S., considerable uncertainty exists about the construction cost, construction schedule, and operating costs of these new reactor technologies,” Constellation wrote in its letter. “Cost uncertainty creates substantial challenges to engaging customers and investors in new project development.”
Though Constellation’s letter made no commitments to building or expanding nuclear in Illinois, the company said it considered its existing six sites to be the most promising options for further development. The company said it would be feasible to build at least six gigawatts of new energy at those sites, far surpassing Pritzker’s two-gigawatt target.
The state agencies and partners tasked with reviewing the interest letters from developers and communities are mandated to issue a report with their findings and recommendations in August.
Rezin, who has been a major nuclear advocate, said Illinois is the right place for continued nuclear growth, pointing to the existing expertise in the state.
“We would not be here if it weren’t for the world-class research institutions like Argonne National Lab and the University of Illinois,” Rezin said. “I am so proud of these experts, and we are very fortunate to have these experts right in our backyard.”