The operator of more than a dozen U.S. nuclear power plants aims to extend the life of its fleet by up to two decades using federal tax incentives approved this year, its CEO said this week.
Nuclear production tax credits made law under the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August, have had a “transformational impact” on Constellation Energy’s nuclear power business, CEO Joe Dominguez said Tuesday during a third-quarter earnings call with investors.
The bill “recognizes the vital role that clean carbon free nuclear plays in meeting the country’s climate objectives,” Dominguez said.
Thanks to the incentives, Dominguez announced that “with continued policy support,” Constellation, Baltimore, believes that it will be able to renew operating licenses at all 13 of its nuclear power plants, the majority of which were set to expire by mid-century. With NRC renewals, some plants in Constellation’s nuclear fleet could keep running through the 2070s, he said.
The company last week applied with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 20-year life extensions at Clinton and Dresden Nuclear Generating Stations, two of its Illinois facilities. The Dresden plant nearly shuttered in September 2021, but was saved by a last-minute bailout from Springfield.
“Our clean energy nuclear plants would have an operating life that is longer than any existing renewable energy source, longer than any new renewable energy source that would be put into service in the next decade,” Dominguez said. “But this isn’t just about competition with other technologies. We need every zero-carbon resource, and license renewal is a hugely important part of our climate tool chest.”
Dominguez also took an opportunity Tuesday to stump for spent fuel management at Constellation nuclear facilities. “I don’t think we get appropriate credit for this,” he said, “but [nuclear power is] the only large-scale energy producing technology that takes full responsibility for all its waste, plans for its eventual disposal, and pre-funds all of its plants’ retirement obligations.”
There is no centralized permanent disposal facility for nuclear waste in the U.S. Currently, spent fuel from civilian power reactors is stored at on-site disposal facilities.
The safe storage of spent fuel at power reactors such as Constellation’s “gives us time to finally resolve disposal, or to reuse the fuel as many technologies now propose to do,” Dominguez said Tuesday.
On the earnings front, Constellation reported losses of around $188 million, or $0.57 per share, in the third quarter ended Sep. 30, according to earnings documents published Tuesday. During the same period in 2021, the company’s former parent company Exelon reported around $607 million in income for its generation segment, which became Constellation in February of this year.
Constellation chief financial officer Daniel Eggers on Tuesday pinned its third-quarter losses on, among other things, higher-than-expected unplanned plant outages and increased replacement power costs. The company reported a quarterly operating revenue of around $6 million, up year-over year from roughly $4.4 million.
The company reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of around $592 million. That figure is down year-over-year from $967 million or so in EBITDA for the same period in 2021. Constellation blamed that decrease largely on lower capacity revenues, increased labor, contracting and material costs and lack of gains on investments.
