Pioneer Genoa reactor. Built 1960s on Mississippi riverbank. Dismantled 1987. Site now used only for dry cask storage of spent fuel from the facility.
Ahead: Less obtrusive, new-tech cooling
GENOA, Wis. — The giant electricity wholesaler Dairyland Power is eyeing the riverside site of its now-decommissioned Genoa nuclear reactor for a new generation reactor. Dairyland’s chief executive Brent Ridge, described the Genoa site, nine miles south of LaCrosse, as his dream scenario” for the returning to nuclear energy generation. “The challenge is going to be partnerships of the federal government, state government, cooperatives, investors, utilities and big technology. Getting all those things to work together,” Ridge said in a LaCrosse Tribune interview. “I am more positive about that than I’ve been in a decade.” Since Dairyland closed its early-generation plant in 1987, Wisconsin’s only nuclear plant has been near Manitowoc on Lake Michigan. Advancements in nuclear technology have opened the door for modular reactors, Ridge said. These facilities, he said, process less fuel while taking up less space, making them more versatile and reducing siting limitations.
Verbatim
Ridge: “The new power plants are looking to be more efficient from a cooling perspective, using less water, different mediums for coolant. You can put five on a site, two on a site, acting like a plug-and-play module. It’s interesting that the word is actually correct: It’s modular.”
Ridge. Chief executive at LaCrosse-based Dairyland Power.