New Jersey has become the sixth state in the last decade, and the second this year, to fully repeal its moratorium on building new nuclear power stations.
On a crisp Wednesday morning at the Hope Creek Generating Station in the southwestern corner of the state, Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed legislation lifting the de facto ban that barred construction of new reactors until the United States established a permanent solution for radioactive spent fuel. The Democrat, who campaigned last year on building new nuclear power capacity in the state, said the prohibitions had outlived any usefulness.
“For too long, outdated laws have kept us from even considering new nuclear facilities,” Sherrill said, as steam billowed from the station’s hyperboloid cooling tower behind her. “One law required any new projects to point to a method of disposal that, quite literally, does not exist. It was written in the 1970s, tied to a technological requirement that made sense then but not today.”
Located along a crook in the Delaware River, south of Wilmington, Delaware, and north of where the waterway widens into a bay, the single-reactor Hope Creek plant sits on an artificial island alongside the two-reactor Salem Nuclear Power Plant. Both stations are owned by the utility giant PSEG. Combined, the two generating facilities produce 40% of New Jersey’s electricity and 80% of its carbon-free power.
