An aerial view of the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant, near Red Wing. The two pressurized water reactors produce approximately 1,100 megawatts. Photo by Getty Images.
Minnesota’s 31-year-old ban on new nuclear power plants is facing another challenge from utility companies and supporters of nuclear power, who say the technology is necessary to meet the state’s ambitious goal of using only carbon-free sources of energy by 2040.
The carbon-free mandate and projected increases in electricity consumption — from residential electrification, the proliferation of data centers and increased adoption of electric vehicles — are increasing pressure on lawmakers to legalize new nuclear facilities.
Republicans overwhelmingly support repealing the nuclear moratorium; Democratic lawmakers say they’ll take their direction on the issue from the Prairie Island Indian Community.
That means the decision on whether to repeal the nuclear moratorium rests with the Tribal Council for the Prairie Island Indian Community, which has battled nuclear energy interests since the construction of the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant on the outskirts of the reservation more than 50 years ago.
With a split Legislature, support from the Prairie Island tribe will be key to repealing the moratorium.
Blake Johnson, who represents the tribe at the Capitol, said the community has been involved in conversations about the moratorium since the end of the last legislative session. The tribe is not taking a position on bills this session without further community engagement and Tribal Council discussions.
“The vast majority of the state has enjoyed an incredible amount of base load energy without the accompanying pollution for the last 50 years,” Johnson said in testimony to the Senate Energy, Environment and Climate committee Wednesday.
In 2023, 400,000 gallons of radioactive water leaked from the Prairie Island plant into the Mississippi River; state officials and Xcel Energy, which owns the plant, waited four months to notify the public.
Sen. Andrew Matthews, R-Princeton, is co-chair of the Senate energy committee and lead author of the bill to repeal the moratorium; he proposed an amendment to his own bill that would ban the construction of any new nuclear generation facility within 10 miles of the Prairie Island reservation.
Without the express support of the Prairie Island Indian Community, the bill did not pass the Senate committee; it was laid over, meaning it could wind up in another bill.
The House version of the bill passed the House Energy Finance and Policy Committee with only Republican votes during Democrats’ boycott of the session. A Minnesota Supreme Court ruling rendered the vote invalid because the House lacked a quorum of members.
Lawmakers consider opening the door to large-scale hydroelectric dams
The Senate energy committee also heard a bill Wednesday that would count large-scale hydropower projects as carbon-free.
Under a law passed in 2023 by the DFL-controlled Legislature, utility companies must generate 100% of their electricity using zero-carbon emissions energy sources by 2040.
Currently, hydroelectric power plants that have a capacity under 100 megawatts of energy count as “renewable energy.” A bill authored by three Republican senators and one Democrat would remove that cap, opening the door for development of large hydroelectric dams.
Currently, the largest hydroelectric energy facility in the state is the Thompson Dam on the St. Louis River, which produces around 70 megawatts of energy. A megawatt of energy can power a few hundred homes.
The bill did not advance out of the committee, but could be incorporated into another bill later on.