tagged w/ Southern Co.
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CNN...
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New nuclear reactors set to be OK'd for Georgia
By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoney
February 8, 2012: 3:33 PM ET
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to approve the construction of two new reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant, seen here. It would be the first new construction license for a reactor granted in over 30 years.
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) --
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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to approve licenses to build two new nuclear reactors on Thursday, the first approvals in over 30 years.
The reactors are being built in Georgia by a consortium of utilities led by Southern Co. (SO, Fortune 500) They will be sited at the Vogtle nuclear power plant complex, about 170 miles east of Atlanta. The plant already houses two older reactors.
Spokespeople for Southern Co. and the NRC were quiet on the matter Wednesday ahead of the vote set for Thursday at 1 PM ET. If approved, NRC staff would likely issue a construction and operating license within the next few days.
Although new nuclear reactors have been built in this country within the last couple of decades -- the last one started operation in 1996 -- the NRC hasn't issued a license to build a new reactor since 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. The reactors that have opened in the last decades were approved before 1978.
The combination of the Three Mile Island incident and the high costs of nuclear power turned many utilities away from the technology.
There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors at 64 plants across the country that provide the nation with roughly 20% of its power. Half are over 30 years old.
The utilities building the new Vogtle reactors submitted their application seven years ago. Prep-work at the site has been under way for some time, but the actual reactors can't be built until NRC issues the final license.
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The new reactors are a Westinghouse design called the AP 1000. Together they are expected to cost $14 billion and provide 2200 megawatts of power, according to a spokesman for Southern Co. That's enough to power 1 million homes.
The plants are being built with the help of a conditional $8.3 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The loan guarantee is part of DOE's broader loan program that has been criticized for backing companies like Solyndra, the bankrupt maker of solar panels.
The Southern spokesman said the loan guarantee, combined with other regulatory measures, enable the project to receive cheaper financing that will ultimately save ratepayers $1 billion.
The first reactor is expected to come online in 2016 and the second one in 2017, according to Southern Co.
The AP 1000 is the newest NRC-approved nuclear reactor. This would be the first one built in the United States, although four are already under construction in China, said Scott Shaw, a Westinghouse spokesman.
Critics have said the containment walls of the AP 1000 aren't strong enough to withstand a terrorist attack, but Shaw says they were redesigned after September 11, 2001 and have held up during simulations.
He also said the design's passive cooling system makes it much safer than older designs. The AP 1000 uses gravity and condensation -- not electricity -- to cool the fuel rods.
It was the loss of electric power that led to the meltdown of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactors following the tsunami in 2011.
Still, a coalition of nine mostly regional environmental groups say the current design is not safe. They are asking the NRC to delay its decision Thursday until they can file a challenge in federal court.
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First Published: February 8, 2012: 2:20 PM ET
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to approve the construction of two new reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant, seen here. It would be the first new construction license for a reactor granted in over 30 years.
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New nuclear reactors set to be OK'd for Georgia
By Steve... more
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Los Angeles Times...
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NRC approves new nuclear reactor design
Associated Press
December 22, 2011, 10:11 a.m.
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WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have approved a nuclear reactor designed by Westinghouse Electric Co. that could power the first nuclear plants built from scratch in this country in more than three decades.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously approved the AP1000 reactor on Thursday. The certification, effective immediately, will be valid for 15 years.
NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said the newly approved design would ensure safety through simplified, passive security functions and other features. He said plants using the design could withstand damage from an airplane crash without significant release of radioactive materials — an issue that gained attention after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Approval of the design is a major step forward for utility companies in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas that have billions of dollars riding on plans to build AP1000 reactors in the Southeast. Without NRC approval, the utilities could not have gotten a license to build their plants.
Federal officials approved an earlier version of the AP1000 reactor in 2006, but it was never built in the United States. Four AP1000 reactors are now under construction in China.
Aris Candris, Westinghouse president and CEO, said the road to receiving design certification of the AP1000 "has been long and sometimes arduous."
The NRC vote brings the U.S "one step closer to constructing AP1000 units and putting thousands to work to ultimately provide future generations with safe, clean and reliable electricity," he said.
Utilities in Georgia and South Carolina have been waiting for the design certification so they can move ahead with applications to build two reactors in each state.
Atlanta-based Southern Co. applied to build the first two AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Ga. The $14 billion effort is the pilot project for the new reactor and a major test of whether the industry can build nuclear plants without the endemic delays and cost overruns that plagued earlier rounds of building years ago. President Barack Obama's administration has offered the project $8 billion in federal loan guarantees as part of its pledge to expand nuclear power.
Close on its heels is SCANA Corp., which is also seeking permission to build two reactors at an existing plant in Jenkinsville, S.C.
Other applications that use the AP1000 design include two plants in Florida, one and South Carolina and another in North Carolina. Each application is for two reactors.
Even with the design certification, it remains unclear when the Vogtle reactors will receive final approval — a major concern for Southern Co. since any delays could increase the cost of the project.
The biggest difference between the AP1000 and existing reactors is its safety systems, including a massive water tank on top of its cylindrical concrete-and-steel shielding building. In case of an accident, water would flow down and cool the steel container that holds critical parts of the reactor — including its hot, radioactive nuclear fuel.
An NRC taskforce examining the nuclear crisis in Japan said licensing for the AP1000 should go forward because it would be better equipped to deal with a prolonged loss of power — the problem that doomed the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart Energy Development, a nuclear industry consortium that has worked to demonstrate the design's effectiveness, said she was pleased to see the design move forward.
"The AP1000 is the reactor design that will set the foundation for the next generation of nuclear plants in the U.S.," Kray said.
A nuclear watchdog group called the vote disappointing, saying the NRC should have done a new analysis in the wake of the Japan crisis, which occurred after a March 11 tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant into meltdowns in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
A new study could have helped identify and correct any vulnerabilities based on lessons learned from Fukushima, said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"It would be more efficient and cost-effective to address problems that could be corrected at the design stage now, before any new plants are constructed," Lyman said.
After plants are built, any new safety requirements would have to be addressed through costly retrofits and other actions, Lyman said, adding that he was "far from convinced" that the AP1000's passive safety features would be effective in coping with severe accidents.
Under existing rules, a reactor design that commissioners have voted to approve must be published in the Federal Register for 30 days before it is legally effective. Southern Co. officials asked the NRC to make the design effective immediately after the vote, a request that was granted. Publication in the Federal Register is expected by Jan. 5.
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NRC approves new nuclear reactor design... more
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