The story highlights a new study that concluded "expected closure of four nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania will dramatically harm efforts to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, and significantly raise electricity prices for consumers in those states and beyond."

The report, conducted by the Brattle Group for Nuclear Matters (a coalition group supporting nuclear energy), estimates that "keeping the Ohio and Pennsylvania nuclear plants running would avoid more than 21 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, compared to replacing the power source with natural gas and coal."

The reporter put this in context of FirstEnergy’s recent filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and an emergency request for support that critics said "would amount to a bailout that would undermine competitive wholesale power markets that have reduced prices for consumers."

Noting that most new power-generating capacity over the past two years has been wind and solar, the story also included AEE's perspective:

“Technology is going to rapidly improve more than a lot of our expectations,” Dylan Reed, head of congressional affairs at Advanced Energy Economy, a trade group advocating clean energy, told the Washington Examiner. “The ramp-up of energy storage in the next decade and pairing it with other technologies that will have emissions benefits is something hard to model, but will surpass expectations.” 

See the full Washington Examiner story here.