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Rising Natural Gas Prices Not Enough to Save Kewaunee’s Cheap Nuclear Energy
On May 7, 2013, the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Station is scheduled to stop generating emission free electricity for the last time. The plant is one of the better run and maintained facilities in the US, it has an operating license that is effective until December 2033, and it generates electricity for an average cost of about $30 per MW-hr.
That generation cost number does not tell much of the story for Kewaunee because it implies that each MW-hr has a similar cost. If that was true the total ownership cost could be reduced by reducing operations. The reality is that, Kewaunee’s cost of ownership as an operable nuclear power plant is almost entirely fixed; my best guess for the annual cost is approximately $135 million whether the plant produces no power or 4.52 billion kilowatt-hours, which is what it produced in 2012.
