In the Fall of 2025, state lawmakers in Delaware held the first meeting of the Delaware Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force to discuss nuclear energy in the First State. To better understand nuclear energy and Delaware energy in general, we sat down with Kathryn Lienhard, energy research associate for Delaware Sea Grant at the University of Delaware, to discuss the state of energy in Delaware.

How does Delaware get its energy?

We import about two-thirds of our electricity from out of state. We're able to do that because Delaware is part of a regional electric grid that includes all or parts of 14 other states, including Maryland, Illinois, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and others. We have a regional grid operator called PJM Interconnection, which is an independent body responsible not for generating electricity but for moving it within the region.

There are several utilities generating electricity in each state that participate in PJM, and that's how we're able to get the electricity we need, since we don't generate enough to meet our consumption needs.

Does Delaware generate any electricity in-state?

Yes, it does. The primary energy source that is used to generate electricity in-state is natural gas. And when I say natural gas, we don't have natural gas reserves in Delaware, so we bring in natural gas and then process it or put it into a gas power plant to generate electricity.

Historically, Delaware generated a lot of electricity from coal, but coal-fired power plants have been retired in recent years. Notably, I think the last operating coal-fired power plant in Delaware is the Indian River Power Plant in Dagsboro. Many coal plants in the United States have reached the end of their useful operating life and have been decommissioned.

How does the creation of coal or natural gas power plants compare to green energy?

I do want to first emphasize that Sea Grant does not advocate for one technology over the other. Our job is to digest the science and communicate it to people who want information.

What is fascinating to me is the complexity of our energy system and the considerations involved in implementing different technologies. When you look at a wind turbine, for example, the benefit of wind, solar and other renewable resources is that the fuel is a free resource. We’re not paying for the wind, but it does take a lot for us to build a wind turbine. We extract the materials, we need the labor to build it, the construction time to put it up, maintenance while it's running and the same is true for any other type of power plant.

It takes a lot of resources to build a coal-fired power plant, and, in addition, you're paying for the fuel, which must be mined and then transported to the plant.

In Delaware, where we have natural gas-fired power plants, there's the added complexity of importing the fuel from somewhere else because we don't have reserves in Delaware.

Could you talk about the task force in Delaware surrounding nuclear energy?

In 2025, the General Assembly voted to create the Delaware Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force to examine the possibility of deploying small modular nuclear reactors in Delaware, also called SMRs.

Whereas the traditional nuclear power plants are large and take a long time to build, with SMRs, in theory, we could develop a domestic supply chain. The idea is that they could be made in a centralized factory and deployed where you want one. So instead of bringing all the construction materials on site to build large reactors, the benefit is that you build it in one place and then ship it anywhere in the country.

This is all still very much in the research and development phase. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is the body that is responsible for leasing and regulating nuclear power. Any nuclear power plant design must be approved by the NRC.

What are some of the benefits of nuclear energy?

Probably the biggest benefit of nuclear energy is “reliability,” which I use in quotes because it's a complicated term, but a nuclear power plant can output electricity at a consistent rate over a given time period.

When we compare technologies, we refer to a metric called the capacity factor.

Nameplate capacity is the theoretical output of power a plant could generate at 100% performance, which is not reflective of real-life power plant output, because all kinds of power plants need downtime for maintenance.

The capacity factor is the ratio of a generating plant’s actual electricity output to its nameplate capacity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration compiles yearly data for utility-scale electricity generators’ capacity factors. For example, data for 2024 reveal that the capacity factor for wind farms was around 34% because the wind is not always blowing. Solar photovoltaic farms had a capacity factor of about 23%, while coal power plants’ average was around 43%.  Conversely, nuclear power plants had a capacity factor of over 90%.

 A lower capacity factor doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't use the technology; rather, it may be paired with other technologies. I think many energy planners would agree that there is certainly room for intermittent power resources like wind and solar.

Like any power plant, nuclear plants must come offline for maintenance of the fuel rods that are used in the nuclear fission process, but they last several years and nuclear plants, in general, have a long operating lifespan.

The two big pros are electricity reliably and the fact that they have long lifespans.

What are some of the concerns people have around nuclear energy?

There are a few concerns, one being radiation exposure. That concern lives in the public mind. The NRC is responsible for regulating radiation exposure for plant workers, the public and the regions surrounding power plants.

I'm sensitive to the public’s concerns and public perception of nuclear energy, as there have been instances like the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster.

There is also the concern of the proliferation when it comes to nuclear weaponry, as well as nuclear waste. Uranium is the element used in nuclear fission, and it starts with uranium ore, the raw material mined from the earth.

Uranium undergoes many chemical and physical transformations to be enriched into a powder that becomes pellets, which contain enriched uranium. Those pellets have a specific isotope that is favorable for the nuclear fission reaction. The fuel pellets also contain other radioactive materials and uranium with other isotopic signatures.

What happens to nuclear waste?

The U.S. Department of Energy is responsible for managing spent nuclear fuel. There is supposed to be a permanent deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel that is deep in the ground, far away from people and essentially safely stored because the spent nuclear fuel is radioactive for 10,000 years. However, this long-term waste storage site does not yet exist in the U.S., so spent fuel is most often stored on-site at nuclear power plants.

Human communities in the surrounding areas or even people at the state level have concerns and don't want nuclear waste in their proximity. I see this as a classic challenge of our energy system: you can do the technology right, but if you're not involving the public in the decision-making process and they don't feel they have been able to meaningfully contribute to those decisions, then it's unlikely to be successful.

Even when we can solve scientific problems with advanced technologies, there are challenges for everyday people who want to engage in the energy regulatory process. We've seen this with offshore wind projects and with energy transmission and distribution projects across the United States.