For three decades, the U.S. nuclear power industry has been the relative nobody wants to have over.
In the aftermath of the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, construction of new plants stopped and proposals to revive the business were met with scorn from environmentalists, consumer advocates and others who said nuclear was too costly and too risky. In the interim, existing facilities continued to quietly churn out power from remote locations.
The criticism didn’t change last week, but the fate of the industry and its future development might have been altered with President Barack Obama’s announcement of financial and philosophical support for nuclear. It came in the form of government-backed loans and in his statements that nuclear energy has a key role in the country’s power base.
First in line among the beneficiaries of that policy is Plant Vogtle, the nuclear complex in Burke County, near Waynesboro, and its owners, including Southern Co.’s Georgia Power subsidiary.
The company will share with its co-owners, including Oglethorpe Power and MEAG Power, $8.3 billion in low-interest loans that it says will lower the cost to its customers of the project’s expansion.
Vogtle plans to add two units to the pair that began operating in the late 1980s. The first of the new units is scheduled to come online in 2016, the second in 2017, at a total cost estimated at $14 billion.
Southern Co. CEO David Ratcliffe said, “It’s an important endorsement in the role nuclear power must play in diversifying our nation’s energy mix and helping to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Vogtle was selected because the project was “further along in the process. They had already begun some site preparation. We felt simply that this was a project that had a low probability of default.”
Critics immediately pilloried the loan package, terming it a taxpayer giveaway, a bailout for giant utilities. They pointed to a report from the Congressional Budget Office that pegged the chances of default at up to 50 percent, with taxpayers on the hook. The loans will come through the Federal Financing Bank, a government entity.
Even with the loans, they say, the nuclear industry and the Plant Vogtle expansion in particular face challenges, despite talk of an anticipated nuclear “renaissance.”
Southern Co. has said it expects the Vogtle expansion to receive its operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sometime in 2011.
Opponents say not so fast.
Last year, the NRC told Westinghouse, the designer of the shield building for the reactor planned for Vogle units 3 and 4, that it had to change the design because it might not adequately protect the reactor in the event of certain catastrophes, such as an earthquake.
NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko said, “Changes need to be made and additional information needs to be provided.”
Sara Barczak, a program director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the design issue could lead to costly delays as the companies work to address safety concerns and obtain necessary licensing.
“They’ve put on a very confident air that [Vogtle] will be done on time and on budget. But we’ve seen cancellations and changes in other plans around the country,” she said.
A longer-term problem facing the nuclear industry is the need to find a permanent home for the radioactive spent fuel that nuclear plants generate. The demise of the planned permanent waste depository in Yucca Mountain, Nev., drove home the problem.
“We need to accelerate our efforts to find ways of storing this waste safely and disposing of it,” Obama said last week, adding that a group of leaders and nuclear experts are searching for an answer.
Spent fuel is now stored on-site at Vogtle and other nuclear facilities.
While downplaying the potential for licensing delays and the near-term problem of waste storage, nuclear supporters have touted the environmental benefits and the economic impact of projects like Vogtle.
Ratcliffe said the Vogtle expansion would mean 3,500 jobs at peak construction, and 800 permanent positions.
Obama, too, cited the jobs impact while emphasizing the need for nuclear power.
“We’re going to have to build a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in America,” he said.
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