The Haddam Volunteer Fire Company of Connecticut has one more firefighter and emergency medical technician (EMT) available this Labor Day weekend thanks to an unusual factor—the decision to keep a nuclear power plant in service. In March, Dominion Energy signed a long-term deal with Connecticut’s utilities to sell electricity from the Millstone Power Station that gave it a new lease on life.
Beyond generating about 43 percent of Connecticut’s electricity and nearly all its emission-free power, the Millstone plant employs some 1,500 people that support the surrounding community in a wide variety of ways.
With this agreement, Millstone can keep producing reliable carbon-free power for Connecticut’s homes and businesses for another decade. Plus, employees such as Dan Casey can keep helping Haddam residents in need as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. Something he has done for the past 40 years.
Casey followed in his parents’ footsteps as a firefighter; his mother was one of the first women in Connecticut to complete “Firefighter 1” training. Now his children are volunteer firefighters as well.
Volunteering as a first responder gives Casey a lot of satisfaction and brings him closer to the community. “Working as a volunteer firefighter, we are more engaged with our town, helping people when they need it most. I'm glad we are there when people find themselves in a difficult situation to provide the first step in helping them turn things around,” said Casey.
When Casey is not helping the people of Haddam, he is protecting public health and safety in and around the Millstone plant as a 30-year veteran of Dominion, where he works as a nuclear emergency preparedness specialist. Casey said that if Millstone were to close, the family would have to consider moving out of Connecticut.
This would have been a big loss for the Haddam Fire Company as well as for the annual Haddam Neck Fair taking place this weekend, which Casey’s wife helps organize.
“The loss of Millstone would have been catastrophic for our state and our region,” said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont in a statement. “The shutdown of the plant would have exposed the New England region to a nearly 25 percent increase in carbon emissions, increased risk of rolling blackouts, billions of dollars in power replacement costs, and the loss of more than 1,500 well-paying jobs.”
Similar stories are playing out across the country as nuclear plants are facing early closure. In states such as Illinois, New York and New Jersey, legislative measures helped rescue nuclear power plants from shutting early, saving thousands of jobs and thousands of megawatts of carbon-free power.
Often it is recognition that nuclear-generated electricity is emission-free that figures into saving the plants. But in other states, help did not come soon enough.
Since 2013, eight reactors have closed early, eliminating 6,000 megawatts of emission-free generation. Including the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, scheduled to shut down in September, these nine reactors in their last year produced nearly as much carbon-free electricity as did all U.S. utility solar facilities in 2018.
When nuclear plants are forced to close early, it affects the whole community. Each U.S. nuclear plant employs 500 to 1,000 people and are based in regions where the facility is the foundation of the local economy and tax base. Across the country, nuclear energy provides 475,000 direct and secondary jobs.
When the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, Vermont, closed in 2014, the town had to cut its budget in half. And when Vermont replaced the electricity from the nuclear plant with other sources, emissions went up the following year.
For as much as outstanding volunteers like Casey contribute to their communities through their work, they also recognize the critical role of the electricity from the facilities they operate.
“For 24 hours a day we are providing clean, reliable power regardless of the weather,” Casey said.
Nuclear plants and their workers anchor local communities. Saving plants like Millstone not only preserves the nation’s leading source of carbon-free electricity, it also helps keep vital members of the community thriving.
