Nebraska's Fort Calhoun nuclear station officially closed at the end of October, while the Quad Cities and Clinton plants in Illinois are on the chopping block, pending action from the state legislature this fall.

The plant owners cited economic conditions in their decisions to cease operations - specifically, cheap natural gas and the failure of energy markets to reward nuclear with the same zero-carbon emissions credit given to renewable energy sources.

At a recent forum on nuclear energy organized by the University of Illinois, Illinois Sen. Donne Trotter said that the closure of the Clinton and Quad Cities plants would result in the loss of $21 million in property taxes, $1.2 billion of economic activity, and over 4,000 jobs.

Trotter is the co-sponsor of legislation (SB 1585) that would improve market conditions for nuclear power. The Next Generation Energy Plan would establish a Zero Emissions Standard, which would require the Illinois Power Agency to procure contracts for zero emission credits from nuclear utilities. Crain's Chicago Business reported in late October that a draft version of the bill will use the "social cost of carbon" to calculate the base subsidies for nuclear plants. Additional adjustments would then be made based on market conditions.

As of late October, Trotter was hoping to pass the legislation during the Illinois General Assembly's fall veto session. If the legislation does not pass, Exelon has promised to close the Clinton plant in 2017 and the Quad Cities plant in 2018. With the closures, both communities would lose not only their largest job provider, but also a major tax base.

"When you take that kind of money out of the local economy and schools, it's really going to hurt," says Illinois Rep. Pat Verschoore, who represents the state on the Council of State Governments' Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee.

In Nebraska, the recently shuttered Fort Calhoun, which employed about 700 workers, was one of two nuclear plants in the state and produced a quarter of the state's clean electricity.

The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency receives revenue from the state's nuclear plants as reimbursement for developing radiological emergency preparedness plans and conducting training for first responders. With the closure of Fort Calhoun, the fund that is used for preparation and training of emergency management personnel for accidents involving radiological materials will be cut in half.

Fort Calhoun will now undergo a $1 billion decommissioning and decontamination project, a process that could take up to 60 years to complete. As is the case at four other shutdown reactors in the Midwest (Zion, Big Rock Point, La Crosse and Kewaunee), the spent nuclear fuel will remain in storage at Fort Calhoun until a centralized storage facility or a permanent repository for the nation's waste is established.