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Duke Energy Submits Early Site Permit Application to NRC for New Nuclear Reactors in North Carolina

LCG, December 30, 2025--Duke Energy announced today its submission of an early site permit (ESP) application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The site is near the Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County, North Carolina. The submittal follows two years of work at the site, and the announcement states that the submittal is part of Duke Energy's strategic, on-going commitment to evaluate new nuclear generation options to reliably meet the growing electricity needs of its customers while reducing costs and risks.

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The NRC Issues Summary of 2025 Successes

LCG, December 29, 2025--The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) today issued a summary of its 2025 accomplishments to highlight its commitment to "enabling the safe and secure use of civilian nuclear energy and radioactive materials through efficient and reliable licensing, oversight, and regulation to benefit society and the environment."

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Industry News

Exorbitant Natural Gas Prices Keep New Plants Off Line

LCG, April 8, 2003Recent unusually high natural gas prices are keeping newly built power plants from starting up.

Plant owners and operators say that they cannot profitably operate plants in current economic conditions and may have to wait until the summer, when demand increases.

Current gas prices are roughly $5 per million Btu, and over this past winter prices reached record levels.

Most new plants built over the last few years have been natural gas-fired, a popular choice because of efficiency, local production of fuel, and cleaner emissions. Several natural gas-fired plants are also currently under construction, and roughly 300,000 MW of natural gas-fired capacity has been projected to come on line between 1998 and 2007. Deregulation efforts in many states encouraged the new construction, and many companies assumed that natural gas prices would remain stable when they initially planned the plants' construction.

According to some in industry, the cost of operating a plant is currently higher than simply buying power.

While many new plants are gas-fired, gas and oil plants comprise only a fifth of U.S. capacity. Coal and nuclear plants still dominate, generating some 70 percent of total capacity. Hydroelectric, wind, solar, biomass and others make up just 10 percent.

Companies like Williams Cos. and PPL Corp. have either kept new plants off line or even requested to take plants off line. Other companies have delayed or halted construction of new plants in order to wait for better market conditions.

Some U.S. companies are looking into liquified natural gas, an investment previously thought by some to be unnecessarily costly.

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