Exelon to shut Nine Mile Point-1, Ginna reactors if New York fails to OK compensation plan

As reported by Jim Ostroff at Platts, Exelon Nuclear has threatened to close two of its three atomic reactors in upstate New York, on the Lake Ontario shore, unless the New York Public Service Commission approve massive bailouts to prop them up, at ratepayer expense.

Exelon has engaged in similar blackmailing and hostage taking, of its own workforce and host communities, in Illinois -- with recent announced closure dates for the Clinton atomic reactor (June 1, 2017) and its Quad Cities Units 1 and 2 (June 1, 2018), after the Illinois state legislature refused to bail them out, at ratepayer expense, for the third year in a row.

Exelon has extended its shutdown threats to Byron in Illinois, as well as Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania (Unit 2 melted down 37 years ago).

As David Kraft, director of Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago (Illinois' 35-year nuclear power watchdog) has said, "please do!" NEIS has been the only party -- not Exelon, nor the nuclear power industry's workers' own unions, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) -- to call for "just transitions" for the workforce that would be displaced by reactor closures.

Similarly, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and the Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE) have strongly advocated for a just transition for upstate NY nuclear plant workers, as well as state funding to help nuclear plant host communities adjust from nuclear dependency, to the burgeoning, long overdue renewable energy economy that will replace it.