Duke Reactor Shutdown Plan Shows Shale’s Sway Over Power

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Duke Energy’s decision to dismantle a Florida nuclear power plant rather than undertake the costliest- ever U.S. atomic repair shows how rapidly cheap natural gas is remaking the U.S. power industry, hastening a shift from traditional fuels such as coal and uranium.

Duke’s Crystal River Unit 3 plant in Florida joins Dominion Resources Inc.’s Kewaunee reactor in Wisconsin as the first to be shuttered in the U.S. because of growing shale gas supplies, serving as signposts for utilities from Japan to Belgium also considering decommissioning reactors. At least four other U.S. reactors are also at risk of early retirement due to new power market economics, said Julien Dumoulin-Smith, a New York City- based analyst with UBS Securities LLC, in a telephone interview.

“The fuel du jour is natural gas,” Florida Public Counsel J.R. Kelly, the state’s official advocate for utility customers, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I personally believe in fuel diversity. I’m just afraid the costs of new nuclear are going to be prohibitive.”

The question for Duke, the largest U.S. utility-owner by market-value, is whether Florida regulators will allow it to charge the state’s consumers $1.65 billion for its failed investments in the reactor, while boosting the state’s already hefty reliance on gas to fuel its electricity plants.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-06/duke-reactor-shutdown-plan-shows-shale-s-sway-over-power-energy.html

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1. LOL the Florida Public Counsel is "just afraid" for consumers.

This consumer is more concerned about global warming.