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I BEGAN MY FIRST JOB out of college 38 years ago. A newly minted electrical engineer, I was assigned by Philadelphia Electric Company to work at its Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Delta, Pennsylvania. As a young child, I had visited the Peach Bottom Unit 1 Visitor Center, never anticipating that I’d someday return to the site as an employee.
My concentration in college was power engineering, so I fully expected to be working in the transmission and distribution side of the electric power business. I’d taken exactly one credit hour of nuclear engineering classes in my undergraduate studies. But due to what I attribute to God’s providence, I ended up at Peach Bottom in the generation side of the business.
Less than a year after I started there, the Chernobyl accident occurred, casting a pall on the entire nuclear power industry. About a year after that, Peach Bottom was shut down by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and it wasn’t clear that the station would ever produce another megawatt.
Here I was two years into my new career, employed at the worst U.S. nuclear power plant and in a dying industry. I felt I’d made a boneheaded career move and my future would involve either extended unemployment or an entirely new field of work. If folks had told me back then that I’d still be at Peach Bottom in 2023, I would have laughed at them. At the time, even in the best-case scenario, the plant’s operating license only extended to 2008.
What happened? After two and a half years of turmoil, determination, hard work and necessary paradigm shifts, Peach Bottom was granted its license again and started making power. Fast forward through the next few decades, and the plant had been through several power uprates and two life-extension efforts, extending the plant’s operating life until at least 2053. For many years now, Peach Bottom has been recognized as one of the best-run nuclear power plants in the country, if not the world.
During my career, I’ve seen several up-and-down cycles in the nuclear power industry. In the 1990s, deregulation came to the electric power industry. The financial pressure on the affected utilities was acute. My company went through at least three major downsizings during that decade.
Over a quarter of the company’s employees left during the first reduction, which involved generous voluntary retirement incentives to all employees age 50 and over. These incentives included a nine-month salary lump-sum payment and a pension sweetener that added five years of age and five years of service to the defined benefit pension formula. By the time the third downsizing was complete, there were very few employees left over age 50.
In 2001, when I was 39, employees were offered the opportunity to convert their traditional pension to a cash-balance pension. The industry wasn’t exactly thriving financially, even though nuclear plants were running extremely well throughout the country. My informal assessment was that, if I was more than 90% confident of staying with the company until age 50, selecting the traditional plan would be the best choice. Lacking that confidence, I opted in to the cash-balance plan.
A few years ago, my employer—now called Exelon—again faced financial dilemmas related to its nuclear plants. The industry was in a down cycle, primarily due to the extraordinarily low price of natural gas at the time. Natural gas-fired plants were at that point much more economical at producing electricity. Some of the company’s nuclear plants, including Peach Bottom, were profitable. Other plants, particularly in Illinois, were hemorrhaging money, even though they were well-run and had high-capacity factors.
Absent a political solution, Exelon stated its intent to permanently shut down several of the financially struggling units. Hundreds of employees exited the affected plants to find other jobs. Once again, the future looked bleak for the company and industry. In September 2021, while some of the plants were in the process of shutting down for the final time, the Illinois legislature passed a bill that provided the necessary financial support to keep them running. It was a stunning turnaround, particularly noteworthy in an era of political dysfunction.
It seems that today, with the sustained focus on climate change and increased support for clean energy, nuclear power is again in an up cycle. Next generation small modular reactors are in various stages of development. Grace Stanke, 2023’s Miss America, is an outspoken advocate for nuclear power. Filmmaker Oliver Stone has put out a movie called Nuclear Now that’s strongly pro-nuclear. Even California is looking to extend operations at its last remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon. Plants that had been scheduled to shut down are now furiously hiring new workers.
Such is the environment today, as I look ahead to retirement in September. One result: I’ve found that I’m not quite ready to give up my connection to the industry or the specialized knowledge I’ve acquired over the past 38 years. But that may be a story for a future article.
Ken Cutler lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has worked as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than 38 years. There, he has become an informal financial advisor for many of his coworkers. Ken is involved in his church, enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife Lisa, is a shortwave radio hobbyist, and has a soft spot for cats and dogs. Check out Ken’s earlier articles.
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Congratuation on your upcoming retirement! Perhaps you can look into part-time consultant role to continue utilizing your expertise in the industry.
As a lifelong customer of Exelon (Conowingo Power, Philadelphia Electric, Delmarva Power), thanks for your service and best wishes for an long, enjoyable retirement.
Thank you, Larry.
Nuclear is the best solution to climate change, and especially so when we start geoengineering the atmosphere to reduce sunlight. It’s good to see there’s finally higher demand for this vital industry.
I am enjoying this discussion as I am retired from PSEG-Nuclear for a few years now having worked in engineering and operations departments leaving as Senior Reactor Operator.
Fresh out of college with a EE degree began working with General Electric co as field engineer primarily in High Voltage Direct Current stations as startup engineer in Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota and NYC until GE exited that business.
I started nuclear career at Oyster Creek, then Shoreham (Long Island, NY) until it closed for good in 1989. I have met and worked with many wonderful and dedicated workers in the nuclear field and I am optimistic for nuclear’s future.
I am fortunate to have traditional defined benefit plan from PSEG (as well as a much smaller pension from GE). I’ve seen PSEG final average plan go from your last 5 years to 7 years salary calculation. Now our pension has been transferred to a Prudential Insurance co annuity. We are told no benefits change – hopefully so. Not sure how this change sits with regard to ERISA and the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corp. readers with insight I’d appreciate your thoughts.
Hi Chuck, thanks for commenting. Achieving SRO is a noteworthy accomplishment. I have to admit that as I consider my pension options, I am a bit uneasy about how my company may handle it down the road. I could see them offloading the obligation in the future as PSEG did, which makes one of the lump sum options more enticing even though I’d prefer monthly payments. I won’t be making my final choice until October.
That was an amazing “golden handshake” offer. If I’d been over 50, I would have had a hard time turning that one down.
Ken, I too worked in the engineering department at Philadelphia Electric Company that supported operations at both nuclear and fossil generating stations. Fortunately, I was financially able to take advantage of an early retirement offer at age 51 in 2000, and have been retired for almost 23 years now. It was the best decision I ever made. Life has been great for me and my family, and congrats on your upcoming retirement. Your article was great, but I’d like to add an important item that you didn’t include in the third paragraph. The reason the NRC shut down Peach Bottom was because of the negligent and irresponsible behavior of the control room operators at the plant. They were caught sleeping while they were supposed to be monitoring the controls, blocked the windows of the control room so the inspectors couldn’t see inside, and locked the doors so the inspectors couldn’t enter. This behavior and the atmosphere it created necessitated the NRC to require that the plant be shut down until it got its act together.
Wow, Fred…thanks for chiming in. You were able to take advantage of one of those sweet early retirement deals with the traditional pension. And you are correct in the details on the shutdown, which is why I said I was employed at the worst nuclear power plant in the country. The turnaround at Peach Bottom was nothing less than amazing once it took hold and it has really been a great work environment with fantastic people and teamwork since emerging from those dark days.
Ken: You are absolutely correct. All the nuclear plants now operated by Exelon are the pride of the nation’s nuclear fleet. Thanks to dedicated, serious, and energetic engineers like you, the plant was able to succeed. Plus your motivational thinking probably encouraged other engineers and technicians at the plant. Your are right, I was able to take a traditional pension, with a cash payment equivalent to about 1-1/2 years salary which I rolled into my 401(k). Also, I contributed the max to the 401(k) plan while working at PECO. After retiring, I rolled my 401(k) into an IRA at Vanguard. It’s performed wonderfully in index funds. I also contributed every year to a traditional IRA and later Roth IRA’s for both me and my wife, as soon as they became available. I also liked your ‘drive a beater’ article. We drove our 1971 Ford Maverick for 26 years! It didn’t have power steering, power brakes, air conditioning, etc., but the little 200 cubic inch inline 6 cylinder operated perfectly until we sold it in 1997 with over 100,000 miles. The secret—I changed the oil and filter every 6 months. Again, good luck and health in your retirement, and continue writing for Humble Dollar. I’ve been reading Jonathan Clements articles for years, and even still have some of them that I cut out of the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks Fred. The plants are now run by Constellation rather than Exelon as of the company split in February 2022. I’m glad things have worked out so well for you financially. Not surprised since you evidently have been following the Jonathan Clements/Humble Dollar playbook for a long time. Do you ever go to the PECO Quarter Century Club dinners?
I agree that nuclear energy is again in an up cycle and I’m encouraged by your optimism regarding the future of the nuclear industry in the USA. I was the senior federal IT manager at the Yucca Mountain geologic repository project when it shut down and I worked there to the last day. After years of struggling we had finally submitted the license application to the NRC where it was well received. We had green fields ahead of us and high optimism we’d be able to successfully solve a key national problem. Then unexpectedly the White House unilaterally shut us down rather than let the NRC science based review process continue. Here we are 13 years later and still without a national plan to handle our high level nuclear waste. I don’t know the exact figure, but that was about 10 billion dollars and three decades casually tossed away based solely on politics. I sincerely hope going forward we can do a better job and base our decisions regarding nuclear energy on science and engineering rather than misinformation and politics.
Thanks for this. My first thought on reading the article was “what about the waste”.
Your welcome. Regarding the waste, right now Finland, Sweden, France, and Switzerland all have operating geologic repositories designed to safely store their high level waste for at least 100,000 years. Yucca Mountain was designed to safely store it for 1,000,000 years. Worldwide, nuclear waste has harmed less people than any other waste created from producing energy. The history and facts surrounding transporting nuclear material (including waste) show it’s similarly safe. Nuclear material is deadly, but we know how to effectively handle it and the safety record is unmatched by any other energy producing systems. That said, we do need to finish the job and remove the existing waste from the many reactor sites around the USA where it’s currently being stored. Doing nothing is definitely not a long term responsible solution.
I also worked in the nuclear industry for many years, as both a consultant and then with Carolina Power & Light before it was acquired by Duke Power. I’ve probably visited and/or inspected 15 different plants during that time. For me, the nuclear industry was a good career choice until it wasn’t. I was let go during a major reduction in force in my early 40’s. I managed to carve out a new career in the engineering software industry, which I enjoyed far more than my time working in the nuclear industry.
Interesting story Ken. I originally worked for GE Aerospace and we had a number of engineers who migrated from GE Nuclear to Aerospace in the 80s, especially once Limerick came online. I’m intrigued by the many small modular projects. Thanks for the links – I love that Miss America is a Nuk Engineer.
Thanks Rick. Grace Stanke is a passionate and articulate advocate for nuclear. She also was an intern at my company.
I really appreciate the nuclear industry. It has been a fascinating history. I interviewed with Babcock and Wilcox shortly after TMI. They offered a nice salary and a company car. But nobody was sure how long they would be around. I looked elsewhere.
I can relate to all you say having worked across the river and being involved in the HR side of building Salem and Hope Creek and the failed Exelon merger.
Enjoy your retirement, but be prepared for the ongoing turmoil and quest for stable earnings to affect the promises made to retirees.
Thanks Dick. I only need to make it four years until Medicare kicks in, so hopefully I will avoid the effects of any future cuts.
Ken, a few years ago, my family and I met a woman engineer at the Hike Inn in N. GA who had just taken a job on the Plant Vogtle project, right at the time Westinghouse was having problems with it. She was feeling down about her prospects and about the industry in general. You probably know that plant just came on line and another is in the works. When I heard about the opening, I thought of that lady. Thanks for an insiders look.
Ed, thanks for reading and commenting. It is exciting to see Vogtle come on line, but the cost to build it demonstrates how badly our country has let its nuclear construction supply chain deteriorate over the past 40 years. Hopefully others will benefit from the lessons learned.