(The Center Square) – Illinois lawmakers are talking about ending the state’s ban on new construction of large nuclear reactors.
State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, has a bipartisan group of more than 20 co-sponsors for Senate Bill 1527. The measure would remove regulations prohibiting the construction of new nuclear power reactors with a nameplate capacity of more than 300 megawatts of electricity.
“The ban needs to be lifted as a first step so that Illinois can compete with numerous other states for the 24-hours-a-day new nuclear technology investment that will relieve pressure on the national grids,” Rezin said Friday at an Illinois Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee hearing.
Illinois Manufacturers’ Association president and CEO Mark Denzler supports SB 1527. He said Illinois is at a crossroads.
“We had seen flattened energy demand for a number of years, but in the last two to three years, it is skyrocketing because of the data centers, [artificial intelligence], manufacturing and quantum,” Denzler said.
The Illinois Environmental Council opposes the measure. IEC Executive Director Jen Walling cited cost overruns with nuclear projects.
“And these costs suddenly dwarf those associated with readily-available clean energy technologies, but we’re worried they’re going to derail progress in Illinois to deploy solutions like renewable energy storage and energy efficiency,” Walling said.
Nuclear physicist James Walker of NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. said nuclear energy has zero carbon emissions and is safer than people think.
“It’s the safest form of energy that’s ever been devised. If you were to look at deaths per gigawatt hours as your metric and you were to include everything: gas, coal, wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, nuclear would beat out even wind and solar,” Walker told The Center Square.
Walker added that nuclear offers higher capacity than other forms of energy.
“If Illinois is interested in housing things like data centers, AI centers, which are very power-intensive technologies, you can’t sustain those on wind or solar. You would need a higher base-load power,” Walker said.
House Bill 3604 and Senate Bill 1527 would end Illinois’ moratorium on building large nuclear reactors.
Senate Bill 1538 would classify small modular reactors as renewable energy facilities.
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
