Dominion Energy announces investment in smaller, modular reactors that “could play a critical role in achieving deep decarbonization in the decades to come.”
"Contained within steel-lined pools and concrete casks that overlook Long Island Sound, hundreds of tons of spent nuclear fuel rods from the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant have been sitting for decades with nowhere to go — creating a mounting problem for the plant’s owners and Connecticut’s heavy reliance on nuclear power.
The lack of a long-term storage option for spent nuclear fuel led Connecticut lawmakers to impose a moratorium on new nuclear facilities in 1979, when four operating nuclear reactors were providing power to the state.
Only two of those reactors remain operational today, both at Millstone, where they generate nearly 40 percent of the electricity produced in Connecticut.
Yet as Gov. Ned Lamont embarks on an ambitious plan to reach zero carbon emissions from power plants by 2040, some lawmakers have proposed thawing the state’s longtime freeze on nuclear energy."