Some 15 to 20 nuclear power units in the US are “at risk” of being shut over the next five to 10 years due to economic challenges such as low power prices, competition from natural gas-fired generation and subsidized renewables, a nuclear industry official said Thursday. Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, did not name any of the reactors considered to be most at risk in his remarks at a US Department of Energy summit on the future of nuclear power. He did say that small, single-unit nuclear power plants are the most economically challenged. Two such plants, Dominion’s Kewaunee in Wisconsin and Entergy’s Vermont Yankee, have closed for economic reasons since 2013. Entergy’s FitzPatrick in New York and Pilgrim in Massachusetts are scheduled to be shut in 2017 and 2019, respectively, due to such factors, the company has said. The Omaha Public Power District […]