August 18, 2020

Governor J.B. Pritzker

Office of the Governor

James R. Thompson Center

100 W. Randolph, 16-100

Chicago, IL 60601

Dear Governor Pritzker, 

As scientists, conservationists, and concerned citizens, we applaud your strong commitment to climate goals, clean air, and green jobs, and urge you to take action to protect Illinois’ nuclear plants from market failure. 

Illinois is in serious danger of losing four of its six nuclear power plants. These plants — Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, and La Salle — are being forced to compete against historically-cheap natural gas in an electricity market that ignores the impact of greenhouse gas emissions and long-term decision-making. 

Nuclear power is the backbone of Illinois’s clean energy, producing nearly 90 percent of the state’s carbon-free electricity. In 2019, nuclear generated twice as much electricity than coal and seven times as much electricity as solar and wind in Illinois.

These nuclear plants are the crucial ingredient in any low-carbon industrial future for the state, and are threatened with shutdown decades before any need to consider decommissioning for technical reasons. As the pressure on industry to decarbonize continues to increase, any state with nuclear will be a preferred manufacturing destination and any state losing its nuclear plants will be practically eliminated from consideration for long-term industrial investment. This is because nuclear power is the only way to provide the amount of power required by industry day and night, all year round.

Luckily, Illinois’ nuclear plants are among the best in the world, and there is no reason they shouldn’t continue to run for decades to come. Nuclear plants of similar design and vintage around the world are seeing the lives of their reactors extended to 80 years, with no limitation in sight. Further, with proper maintenance and part replacement, these plants can continue to operate like new even further beyond that. 

If these nuclear plants are forced to close, and they will without action from the state or the electricity market, they will be replaced by natural gas, not solar and wind. This has been the result everywhere in the United States, including just weeks ago in New York with the forced closure of Indian Point. 

After the closure of threatened nuclear plants, the share of electricity Illinois generates from clean electricity would decline from 62 percent to 20 percent, most of which is from the nuclear plants that were only saved by support from the state in 2016. That support in 2016 has delivered on its promise of lower bills and environmental protection, and we must repeat the effort now to save the remaining nuclear plants. If we don’t, carbon emissions from electricity would rise by 70 percent in the state, the equivalent of adding 6.5 million new cars to the road. Or, the state itself would see only a portion of these direct emissions increases but would stop being the bedrock electricity producer for the entire Midwest, losing the jobs and tax revenue that come along with the role, while accelerating climate change for the world.

Not only would this be a tragedy for the climate, but also to consumers who will pay $480 million per year in higher rates, according to a recent report from Brattle. If these nuclear plants close, citizens of Illinois will be forced to pay more money to support the operation of fossil fuel plants in Indiana and Ohio that don't protect the environment or pay for their own carbon emissions. Making electricity expensive is extremely regressive, disproportionately hurting lower-income residents who spend a larger share of their income on basic needs like food and energy. California, which is shutting down nuclear plants and replacing them with natural gas using market mechanisms, saw its electricity rates rise six times more than they did in the rest of the U.S in the last decade, and ten times higher than in Illinois where so far all nuclear plants have been saved.

The premature closure of the state’s nuclear plants will especially impact the towns and communities that rely on them. Nuclear plants are economic engines that provide permanent, high-wage, high-skilled jobs for generations. And for every 100 nuclear power plant jobs, 66 more jobs are created in local communities. Replacing in-state nuclear generation with out-of-state natural gas will result in a net job loss for Illinois.  

The purpose of PJM and markets like it was to deliver cheaper rates to consumers and allow for greater low-carbon penetration. But now it may be necessary for Illinois to withdraw from the markets to save two-thirds of Illinois’ clean electricity. Any system that doesn’t absolutely prioritize the permanent retention of cheap, always-on carbon-free nuclear power above fossil fuels is not fit for purpose in the year 2020.

Bold and decisive leadership is necessary to protect Illinois’ clean energy progress and its ambitions of becoming the low-carbon manufacturing hub of the future. As other states begin acting to save their own nuclear plants and renewable energy plans by altering or withdrawing from electricity markets that don’t value environmental protection, it would be a devastating setback to lose the crown jewels of the Illinois’ low-carbon economy through passive acceptance. Illinois nuclear plants were leading the world before the sudden invention of deregulated electricity markets, and with your action they can be producing half or more of our electricity for decades after the end of markets. 

Your action on this issue today could reverberate for generations to come, maintaining cheap in-state generation rather than giving up our key competitive advantage in a carbon-constrained future. We urge you to do everything in your power to keep these plants running for our grandkids.

Sincerely,

Madison Czerwinski, Executive Vice President, Environmental Progress

James Hansen, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions Program, Columbia University, Earth Institute, Columbia University

Michael Shellenberger, President, Environmental Progress

Joe Lassiter, Professor, Harvard Business School

Steven Pinker, Harvard University, author of Better Angels of Our Nature

Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize recipient, author of Nuclear Renewal and The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Alan Medsker, Coordinator, Environmental Progress - Illinois

Steve Kirsch, CEO, Token

David W. Lea, Professor of Earth Science, University of California Santa Barbara

Barrett Walker, Alex C. Walker Foundation

Erle C. Ellis, Ph.D, Professor, Geography & Environmental Systems, University of Maryland

Joshua S. Goldstein, Prof. Emeritus of International Relations, American University

Kirsty Gogan, Executive Director, Energy for Humanity

Mark Boyce, Professor, Ph.D, Biological Sciences, University of Alberta

Tom Wigley, Climate and Energy Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado

Martin Lewis, Department of History, Stanford University

Michelle Marvier, Santa Clara University