[image-1]UPDATE 2/22: The Plain Dealer reports that FirstEnergy does indeed plan to sell or close both the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants.
The Akron-based energy giant intends to offload all of its power plants by the middle of next year.
Original Story: 12/29/2016
USA Today reports that the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station might soon be shuttered or sold by FirstEnergy Corp.
FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones said in an industry conference that due to cheap energy sources like natural gas, and the state of Ohio's unwillingness to set energy prices above market rate, operating some power plants is no longer profitable. Davis-Besse is one of several plant in Ohio and Pennsylvania potentially on the chopping block.
If Davis-Besse were to be closed, not sold, the 624 employees who work there (making an average of $86,000 per year) would be out of job. Thousands of contractors and other workers who work at the site every year would also lose a major client.
Even more "devastating," though, would be the loss in tax revenue to Ottawa County, located in between Sandusky and Toledo. Davis-Besse generated more than $10 million in property and utility tax income in 2015, according to the report.
Davis-Besse, which was Ohio's first nuclear power plant, and has the generating capacity to power 1 million homes, also has a frightening history of structural deficiencies. It underwent a $600 million infrastructural overhaul in 2014.