Co-Siting New Reactors at Existing Nuclear Plants

The United States has set a target of 400 GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2050, four times what it operates today. Executive orders issued to reach that target direct federal agencies to develop land the federal government controls, at Department of Energy and Department of Defense sites and on public lands. The 64 commercial nuclear sites are a separate category, held by their own operators rather than by the federal government, and they offer their own land, existing infrastructure, and licensing history. Two co-siting projects are already under way on such land, at Palisades and at Columbia Generating Station.

This report, prepared by Good Energy Collective, measures how much land each of the 64 commercial nuclear sites in the United States controls, how much of it could be built on after existing development, open water, and floodplain are removed, and how many small modular reactors and large light water reactors that land could accommodate. The boundaries are traced from county tax parcel records, and every reactor count is a maximum on land alone.

At a Glance

• Thirty-three of the 64 commercial nuclear sites in the United States have contiguous undeveloped land of sufficient size and shape for at least one new reactor, and a further 19 have land of sufficient size in shapes where a standard reactor footprint could not be placed.
• At 26 of the 33 sites the buildable land is sufficient only for small modular reactors; at the other seven it is sufficient for at least one large light water reactor, under footprint assumptions of 50 and 500 contiguous acres.
• Site acreage is a poor guide to what can be built. What remains after buildings, open water and floodplain are removed, and whether it lies in one piece, determines the opportunities available.
• Two sites with land for new reactors, Pilgrim in Massachusetts and Monticello in Minnesota, are in states whose laws currently bar building them.
• This analysis independently finds land for new reactors at the two sites where co-siting projects have already been announced, Palisades and Columbia Generating Station.

The analysis is available in the following parts:

Full Report

Site Dataset and Interactive Map — Coming soon.

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