St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Ameren officially pulls plug on new Callaway nuke
Ameren Corp. officially pulled the plug on a new nuclear power plant in Callaway County, withdrawing its application for a second reactor from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Ameren CEO Warner Baxter announced the company’s decision on a conference call with analysts to discuss the St. Louis-based utility company’s second quarter earnings.
Baxter cited “our assessment of long term capacity needs, declining costs of alternative generating technologies and the regulatory framework in Missouri,” as some of the drivers behind the decision.
But he maintained that Ameren continues “to believe nuclear power must be an important clean energy source for our company and country, as evidenced by the 20-year license extension we received this past March for our Callaway Energy Center.”
The decision is not entirely surprising — Ameren’s application to the NRC has languished since 2008. In order to help finance the massive construction project, it tried for years to persuade legislators to change state law so it could bill customers while construction of the plant was in progress.
After those attempts failed, Ameren tried to team up with Westinghouse in 2012 for a so-called small modular nuclear reactor, or SMR. But the team was passed over for federal grants twice, and Ameren said it was “stepping back” from the project at the end of 2013.
