Amid rising oil and gas prices, Connecticut officials are canvassing the state, asking communities if they’re interested in hosting a controversial form of power: nuclear energy.
The reaction so far? Less than energetic.
“No towns have come forward yet,” said Bill Flood, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).
It’s a tepid response to a program the state says is still in its early stages.
Last year, Connecticut amended a moratorium on new nuclear energy sites, offering towns and cities up to $5 million to explore the option of hosting an advanced nuclear reactor.
Connecticut currently hosts one nuclear reactor – the Millstone Power Station in Waterford. It’s a crucial baseload generator for a state with some of the nation’s highest electricity prices. And as offshore wind projects face growing federal scrutiny and subsidies for clean solar run out, energy officials say nuclear energy could provide one critical path to cost savings.
But communities need to be onboard with the idea. And that could be a tough sell.
“I know we would all look forward to having a new SMR [small modular reactor] in our backyards,” joked State Sen. Norm Needleman, a Democrat who co-chairs the Energy & Technology Committee, during the public hearing.
“Raise your hands if you want one,” he said.
A long road to a reactor
Even if a community signs up to host a new nuclear plant, it could be 2035 before it’s operational, said DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes.
“Permitting, siting, construction, deployment, coming online - that is a long, long journey,” Dykes said at a public hearing of the Energy & Technology Committee on March 5.
“While it may seem like a long time from now, now is when we have to get started,” she said.
Still, state officials are banking on the idea that communities will buy in.
The latest amendment to the moratorium paves the way for a nuclear reactor to theoretically be built in any town or city in Connecticut that opts in to hosting it, whether that opt-in takes place through a vote or referendum. Nearby towns and cities that fall within the reactor’s emergency planning zone would also have to opt in.
Public perceptions of nuclear energy aside, part of the problem is the lack of space.
“There are very few communities that you can think of, looking at a map of Connecticut where you’d say, ‘Oh that’s a place where you could build a nuclear power plant and have access to the land and the enormous quantities of water that it would consume for cooling,” said Chris Phelps, state director of Environment Connecticut.
“You’re not going to plop a new nuclear reactor down in the middle of Hartford, for example, or New Haven,” he said.
Another problem is the huge price tag associated with building nuclear power plants and the lack of developers interested in building in Connecticut.
“There’s a little bit of a cart before the horse problem,” Phelps said. “The reality is there’s no one chopping at the bit to build a new nuclear plant in Connecticut in part because they’re wildly expensive.”
Two nuclear reactors in Georgia, completed in 2024, cost more than $30 billion to build – more than twice the initial estimate. The large-scale reactors were the first to be built in the United States in several decades.
“The first developers of these projects will probably see some of the highest prices for developing those first reactors because of all the learnings that come with being first,” Dykes said at the public hearing.
“As more projects are deployed, we expect that the cost is going to come down. It’s kind of a good thing not to be the first one, because we could avoid some of those high costs,” she said.
What happens next?
Bill Flood, the DEEP spokesperson, said the lack of interest from communities so far is not unusual.
“We wouldn't expect that yet as we're still in the midst of hosting informational workshops,” he said. “It's very early in the process.”
DEEP is scheduled to host six informational workshops on nuclear energy so towns and cities can get more information.
Those meetings were scheduled to take place between the end of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, which ends on March 31. So far, two of those meetings have taken place and the remaining ones have not been scheduled, according to a spokesperson for DEEP.
Áine Pennello is a Report for America corps member, covering the environment and climate change for Connecticut Public
