OCEAN COUNTY – Assembly Republican members are voicing strong support for Holtec International’s proposal to build Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) at the former Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Ocean County.
Assemblymen Alex Sauickie, Christian Barranco, and Paul Kanitra, all members of the GOP Energy Task Force and the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee, toured Holtec’s Krishna P. Singh Technology Campus in Camden this week with other lawmakers.
“Nuclear is safe, reliable, efficient, and carbon-free,” Sauickie said. “New Jersey needs to focus on getting small modular reactors up and running and forget Big Wind. The infrastructure at Oyster Creek already exists. Holtec is now looking for the state’s support to advance their plans and we stand prepared to champion the future of the site.”
Holtec, the nation’s largest nuclear reactor builder, hopes to construct four SMRs at Oyster Creek, which shut down in 2018. The company is also building the country’s first SMR and recommissioning the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.
Barranco said four SMRs at Oyster Creek would double the site’s former capacity and provide redundancy to ensure power continues if one unit is taken offline.
Kanitra said the project would generate jobs and lower energy costs. “It would take 1,800 wind turbines spinning to equal the power of just one nuclear reactor,” he said. “We need to put our support behind clean nuclear power if we are going to solve the energy crisis created by state Democrats’ quest for renewables.”
In 2022, nuclear power provided about 44 percent of New Jersey’s electricity, while solar and other renewables supplied roughly 8 percent.
