Healey’s shift toward nuclear energy raises affordability, feasibility questions

 

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New from CommonWealth Beacon COMPETITIVENESS: Gov. Maura Healey’s top economic development official and state lawmakers musings at a recent budget hearing about affordability in the nation’s second-most expensive state centered on one buzzword: competitiveness, Jennifer Smith reports. OPINION: A change in guard at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority should bring with it a new focus to clean up the Mystic and Charles rivers, write Paul Levy, a former MWRA executive director, and Emily Norton, the head of the Charles River Watershed Association.

Healey’s shift toward nuclear energy raises affordability, feasibility questions   March 11, 2026 By jordan wolman

A push from Gov. Maura Healey to expand nuclear power in the state is taking nascent steps forward and stirring debate around how Massachusetts should contend with the Trump administration’s opposition to wind power, which not long ago was the pillar of the state’s clean energy transition.

But, as the courts sort through the federal government’s rollback of wind permits along the eastern seaboard, the governor’s embrace of nuclear has resurfaced the fraught political and policy calculus surrounding this contentious energy source that is now seeing a resurgence of bipartisan support across the country.

And new findings released last week from Healey’s nuclear roadmap working group are giving officials reason to believe that there could be budding buy-in from the public, too, said Sukesh Aghara, director for UMass-Lowell’s nuclear engineering and science program who is leading the roadmap initiative.

“I thought there was going to be a big, giant valley in the middle,” Aghara said following four months of stakeholder meetings with more than 1,000 people. “There’s all these pro nuclear guys, and there’s going to be all of these anti-nuclear people. And honestly, it’s like 50 shades of gray. There are a lot of curious people who genuinely want to have a conversation.”

In the hunt for the right mix of power sources that can both quell soaring electricity prices and meet rising demand, Healey is looking to squeeze out every last electron possible. Part of the push to lay the groundwork for a rebound of nuclear power in the future — after the energy source declined in the US following a wave of plant retirements — is about planning now to avoid getting stuck with stagnant energy supply and surge pricing in a decade.

The governor filed a proposal last May that’s now moving through the Legislature to get a 44-year-old state law off the books that makes it harder for new nuclear projects to break ground. Her administration is also looking into procuring nuclear energy, which already contributes about 20 percent of the region’s power supply, from a large facility in Connecticut. And her nuclear roadmap initiative is planning to release a full report in the coming months examining the possibilities for a nuclear renaissance in the Bay State.

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“I’m a kid who grew up in the shadow of Seabrook nuclear power plant,” Healey told lawmakers last month at her budget proposal, referencing the New Hampshire nuclear power plant, one of two in the region. “In the aftermath of Three Mile Island, I understand people’s visceral response and concern about nuclear power. I also know that technologies evolve,” adding that new nuclear generation could both cut emissions and produce more energy. “We should be exploring all of these things and supporting all of these things.”

The argument for nuclear is, in some ways, simple. Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas pollute the atmosphere, drive climate change, and are subject to volatile pricing, while solar and wind power are intermittent sources when not backed by battery storage. Nuclear energy takes the best of both: It doesn’t generate greenhouse gas emissions and reliably produces power.

But it’s no slam dunk either. Building new nuclear facilities is notoriously expensive and time-consuming. New technologies are unproven at scale. And questions still linger about the public’s appetite to accept more nuclear power, since disasters like Three Mile Island remain seared in some Americans’ minds, and the US still has not figured out a coordinated system for dealing with the radioactive waste that’s produced.

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More Context House passes landmark energy bill with deep cuts to Mass Save, sending it to Senate (February 2026)

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