Why Should Delaware Care?
State lawmakers spent months debating a variety of solutions to mounting concerns related to energy supply and cost during the last legislative session. One of those efforts, a task force report focusing on the potential for nuclear power as part of the state’s solution, found that novel nuclear power technologies are not a viable short-term path forward.
A group of stakeholders have decided, after months of deliberation, that small modular nuclear reactors — recently touted as a possible solution to Delaware’s growing energy demands — are not a feasible option to meet the state’s immediate energy needs.
The task force, made up of lawmakers, industry experts and community representatives, reached the same conclusion in its 50-page report that many had suspected even before the group began meeting last fall.
The group concluded that turning to small modular reactors — a largely unproven technology that relies on novel fuel types and compact, factory-built designs — is not a viable option in the short term.
“No duh,” said Martin Willis, one of Gov. Matt Meyer’s appointees to the state’s Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force, in early August. “… I told them from the beginning you cannot say we’re only going to go after small modular reactors. You have to say nuclear power. We’re going after nuclear power.”
And that is essentially what the task force concluded. While the group, tasked only with evaluating small modular reactors, ruled them out as a short-term solution, its report said more research and outreach needs to be done to figure out whether nuclear power more broadly could fit into Delaware’s energy future.
Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown), chair of the task force, said in an emailed statement the state needs “a dedicated body” to continue evaluating nuclear’s feasibility with input from the public. It is unclear, however, if lawmakers will create a committee during next year’s legislative session focused more broadly on the feasibility of nuclear energy.
And while the next steps politically remain unclear, another task force member said he was disappointed by the report’s lack of proposed action.
Rep. Jeff Hilovsky (R-Long Neck) said that while he was impressed by the amount of knowledge the group gained over its months of meetings, he wishes it had accomplished more.
“The report could have been done at the end of the first session,” Hilovsky said. “We spent all this manpower, all this money, had these people take up their time, and we did nothing.”
The report notes the group’s scope expanded to discuss nuclear energy more broadly, but it did not go so far as to recommend or reject the idea outright.
“Delawareans are facing rising energy costs, and we must diversify our energy portfolio with renewable and clean technologies that help ease the burden of these increasing rates,” Hansen added in her emailed statement.
Andrew Cottone, founder and CEO of the local, hydrogen-focused energy company Aternium, said the task force’s efforts made it clear that “Delaware should begin preparing now for the possibility of clean nuclear energy.”
“The future will not wait for Delaware, and neither should we,” he said in an email to Spotlight Delaware. “It’s time to stop kicking the energy can down the road and start building an energy strategy for the next generation.”
A call for executive action
Willis, a boilermaker who works on industrial construction sites, was vocal at many task force meetings about what he called the immediate need to address the imbalance of energy supply and demand in the region.
“Rep. Hilovsky said doing nothing is not an option and what have we done? We’ve done nothing,” Willis said. “The only way Delaware has a future in nuclear power is for the governor to step up and say I’m going to put out an executive order.”
Meyer, in an emailed statement, called nuclear energy a “reliable source” of power and said there needs to be more nuclear generation, but he did not comment on the possibility of issuing an executive order on the matter.
Delaware imports some 60% of the power it consumes, and electricity prices have been spiking drastically.
Projections have shown that the PJM Interconnection, a 13-state energy grid that includes Delaware, is facing booming demand for electricity driven in part by a growth in energy-hungry data centers. The boom has been exacerbated by the decommissioning of existing power generation sites like the Indian River Power Plant. For that reason, the region is expected to face a high risk of blackouts starting in 2029.
Willis, along with some policymakers and experts, argue that gas-fueled power plants are the most feasible short-term solution to produce more power for the state, but regulated Delaware electric providers like Delmarva Power are currently prohibited from building their own generation.
Much of this recent year’s state laws have focused on curbing electricity demands from data centers and supporting the growth of solar resources.
While stakeholders go back to the drawing board, Delaware’s nuclear future remains uncertain.
But even if the task force had given small modular reactors — or nuclear power more broadly — a concrete path forward, the technology, as-is, cannot offer Delaware an immediate solution.
No company has reportedly been looking to build any kind of nuclear technology in Delaware, and without any regulatory or financial framework in place, it would take years before those plants could come online. Companies would then potentially have to wait decades before seeing costs recovered from constructing what is one of the most expensive types of power generation technologies.
