Nuclear energy was the second-largest source of electricity in the United States in 2020 amid losses in coal generating capacity, according to a new federal report.
Nuclear power plants produced 790 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity last year — 16 million MWh more than coal generation, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Thursday report. It was the first time since at least 1949 that coal wasn’t the largest or second-largest source of electricity in the country, the agency said.
The nuclear industry shouldn’t celebrate just yet, though. According to the report, the EIA expects that nuclear generation will decrease through 2022. Four upcoming power plant retirements are to blame for that decline: Illinois’s Byron and Dresden plants, the Palisades plant in Michigan and New York’s Indian Point Unit 2 are all scheduled to shut down in the next two years.
The EIA previously reported that nuclear plant retirements would account for 56% of the country’s generating loss this year — the largest share among all sources of electricity.
