Exelon must shoulder financial burden of its nuclear plants

Exelon established six nuclear power plants over the course of several years. In the past decade, they have done fairly well bringing in more than $21 billion in profits. The high profits can largely be attributed to high electricity prices. But as the price of natural gas and oil have been steadily decreasing recently, many consumers are turning to those means of energy. Because of this recent loss in interest in what the nuclear plants have to offer, profits for the plants have been quite low and Exelon is seriously considering closing up to half of its power plants. 

Exelon has been pushing for legislature to get consumers to pay more, which would all-around be bad for consumers, but all-around good for the company. This may seem like a ridiculous request that would never be met by the local government, but Exelon has ties in government and the plants provide many jobs. There would need to be a few necessary guidelines for this piece of legislature to work: the first would be to share the risks and rewards of the increased investment in the plants equally between the company and the consumers. The second requirement would be that the state would need to prioritize clean and efficient energy resources, so that the plant would gain more profits. The final guideline is that any support is to be given only after an analysis of Exelon's financial situation.

I don't like the fact that a private energy company can make billions of dollars, but once they start to lose money they have the power to influence government into helping them out. In a mostly free-market economy, there shouldn't be this level of influence over the government to receive financial help.