Xcel Energy has its eye on nuclear power.
Chief executive Dick Kelly said this week that the Minneapolis-based utility would probably partner with another company if it were to build a nuclear plant.
Tim Taylor, Xcel’s top Colorado executive, recently told The Denver Post that the utility doesn’t have plans to place a plant in Colorado, but “in terms of the nation, nuclear has got to be an option.”
“We’ve got no plans for any, but I have asked people in the community in the past couple of months . . . ‘Do you think we could ever site a nuclear plant in the state of Colorado?’ ” said Taylor, CEO of Public Service Co. of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel. “The answers are very interesting. They go all the way from, ‘Yes, but it’s got to be a long ways away from Boulder,’ to ‘No.’ ”
He added that “if we are really going to get rid of carbon (emissions), we have to do this.”
Kelly told Reuters on Monday that the utility would likely partner with others if it were to add a nuclear reactor.
“I certainly hope nuclear is part of our answer going forward,” he said at a conference in New York, according to Reuters.
