Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

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Duke Energy announced Friday that they may delay their plans to construct a Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power reactor near Gaffney, South Carolina by 3 years.  The proposed Lee Nuclear Station would then be delayed to a 2021 start-up instead of the previously planned 2018 date.  See the Charlotte Business Journal article below for more information.

I’m not posting this article because I think that the three-year delay is a dagger to the heart of the “nuclear renaissance.”  The reason I posted this article was because of my personal experience at a Kangaroo gas station near Gaffney, SC last Friday.  I was on my way out of town for the Labor Day weekend and stopped at the station to fill up for the ride.

Two women–one a Manager, the other a sales clerk, were discussing the news from Duke Energy that had come out that morning.  They were honestly upset that Duke was considering delaying the construction for 3 years.  I overheard the Manager say a couple of times that it was a “shame” that Duke is going to delay the construction, and that she “really was looking forward to getting all of that business.”

These women want more nuclear power in their area, and their conversation just goes to show how much the average person understands about the economic benefits that nuclear power can provide to a community.  It’s not just the large energy corporations that benefit from new nuclear plants.  It’s the local small-business owners that also look forward to the residual economic successes that nuclear power can promise to bring.

Nuclear revival may not arrive on schedule

Charlotte Business Journal

September 4, 2009

By John Downey

As Duke Energy considers as much as a three-year delay in building the proposed Lee Nuclear Station, there are signs that the approval process for AP1000 — the reactor chosen for Lee and most new plants planned in the Southeast — may fall off schedule. At issue is certification of the reactor design for Plant Vogtle, the dual-reactor plant being built in Georgia by the Southern Co. The power industry hopes to cut licensing and construction times — and thus save money — by building plants on a few standardized reactor models. The idea is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can certify one standard reactor model for a plant and then subsequent plants using the same model will not need to get new certifications.

Westinghouse blamed

Vogtle is the lead plant for the wave that will be built on the AP1000. So a delay, if significant, could affect plants planned in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina. An NRC spokesman tells the Augusta Chronicle it is too early to tell whether the current delay in approving some safety features will result in an overall delay in certification. But it is clear that the commission cannot now get its review of certain safety features accomplished by November as planned. The NRC blames Westinghouse Electric Co., designer of the AP1000, for the delay. In a letter last week to Westinghouse, the NRC’s New Reactor Licensing division complains the company has been slow to submit “necessary design information” on engineered safety features. And it says the information, when submitted, “failed to resolve the long-standing fundamental questions.”

Missed deadline

The schedule for the review had already been delayed once. But in June, the NRC says, Westinghouse missed a new deadline. And more delays followed, according to the letter: The staff received the subject submittal at the end of July 2009…. The submitted information failed to resolve the long-standing fundamental questions related to the design basis debris source term, the limiting system flows, in-vessel testing, the magnitude of debris bypassing the sump screens, and the choice of the limiting accident scenario. The staff had planned to meet with Westinghouse on August 25, 2009; however, that meeting has been delayed at your request until the week of August 31, 2009. Given the fundamental nature of the questions raised by the recent submittal and the delay in meeting with the NRC on resolving these issues, the staff is no longer able to support an Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards briefing … in November.

Charlotte’s stake

The delay may be nothing more than a hiccup. But business leaders and economic developers in Charlotte may want to keep an eye on Duke’s plans and the progress of the AP1000. Economic developers have concentrated on attracting nuclear energy related companies to the region over the past couple of years. Those efforts have been successful. Westinghouse, the Shaw Power Group and Toshiba — partners in the AP1000 — all have growing presences here. The French company Areva SA also has important operation in the region. The growth in nuclear energy business here is related to the broader plan to turn Charlotte into a national energy hub.

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I was disappointed to read in the news that recent attempts to overturn explicit or effective nuclear power bans failed in six states. West Virginia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Wisconsin upheld new nuclear power plant bans in 2009. This comes at a time when the NRC is considering licensing applications for new plants in 14 states. West Virginia has an effective ban under which certain conditions have to be met in order to begin construction on a new nuclear power plant. The following West Virginia stipulation is taken from an article discussing nuclear plant bans:

“The code requires at least 24 months’ prior operation of a national facility which safely, successfully and permanently disposes of any and all radioactive wastes associated with operating any such nuclear power plant, nuclear factory or nuclear electric power generating plant.”

Of course now that Yucca Mountain has lost federal support the development of such a repository seems unlikely in the near future.

The first ban on new nuclear plants was instated in California. Twelve states now ban the construction of new nuclear plants. Many bans were developed shortly after Three Mile Island. Improvements in operation and reliability in existing plants have since proven that nuclear power provides safe, clean, CO2 free energy. These bans come despite the increasing support shown by the general public for nuclear power as reported in an earlier blog post.

Residents in states with new nuclear power bans need to make their legislators aware that they support nuclear as a clean baseload power alternative to greenhouse gas emitting energy sources such as coal and natural gas.

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Myth: People don’t want Nuclear power plants in their backyards

Where do I even start? This is an enormous myth. I was pleased last week to find that Bisconti Research Inc. made public their Nuclear Plant Neighbor Survey results because it makes my job in disproving this myth embarrassingly easy.

The Nuclear Plant Neighbor Survey used a sample of 1,100 adults living within 10 miles of one of our nation’s 64 nuclear plant sites. Plant employees living within ten miles of a site were not surveyed. Below are some of the results worth highlighting:

• 84% of Americans living near nuclear power plants favor nuclear energy!
• 90% view the local nuclear power station positively!
• 76% would support the construction of a new reactor near them!
• 72% associate nuclear energy “a lot” with reliability!
• 71% have heard or read about the clean-air benefits of nuclear energy!
• 58% strongly support nuclear energy whereas only 5% strongly oppose!
• 83% believe that companies that own sites are involved in the community!

Wow! Nuclear plant neighbors are not only happy with the plants, but they wouldn’t even mind more reactors being constructed on site. These survey results really point out what great stewards domestic nuclear sites are within their respective communities. It doesn’t hurt that no member of the general public has ever been killed as a result of nuclear power plant operation something even wind turbines can’t claim.

Separate from the survey, I also wanted to take a more in depth look at another argument made by the “not in my backyard” crowd. Some residents have expressed worry that nuclear power plants could drive down home prices and hurt nearby communities. I decided to take a look at home prices directly next to McGuire Nuclear Station outside of Charlotte, NC where the median home price is $169,000. Using Zillow.com, I scanned prices of homes that have recently sold or are for sale near McGuire Nuclear Power Station. I found that there are several houses within less than ten miles of the power plant that have recently sold for over $1 million. Some of Charlotte’s most wealthy residents are choosing to live near the plant. When people that can afford to live just about anywhere invest in a home that close to a plant it makes you wonder if the “driving down home prices and hurting communities” fear really carries any weight. And the answer is no.

I dug deeper and found a 2006 study by Roger Bedzek and Robert Wendling that specifically studied the impact of 7 nuclear sites on property values. The results of this study can be summed up in one excerpt:

“The taxes and fees the facilities pay often fund over half of the county and school district budgets and provide levels of public and educational services that are far above those of surrounding counties and greater than the state averages. In each of the seven regions, housing and real estate values have benefited from the operations of the nuclear facilities.”

If nuclear power plants make for better schools and higher property values you can put one in my backyard today!

( By Mark Stewart ) [Approx. Read Time: 3 minutes]

Florida state authorities, including the Governor, approved an important element of Progress Energy’s proposal to build two new nuclear power plants (NPP) in Levy County, FL.  You can read the Jacksonville Observer’s account here.  Florida officials approved the plants despite some protesters using some of the same, tired, and inaccurate arguments against the world’s only reliable carbon-free baseload electricity generation method. FL Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda was sure to make her voice heard with the following:

“I’m concerned about the cost with regard to this nuclear power plant, I’m concerned about the time that it’s going to take to build this nuclear power plant, I’m concerned about the number of jobs, I’m concerned about the danger and I’m concerned about the legacy that we leave our children and our children’s children.”

As detailed in a previous post, NPP are a GREAT investment, if you are able to think long-term.  NPP do take time to build but they are the only technology available NOW that can provide the CO₂ free power on a large scale that the US (and the rest of the world) needs.  I’m not sure what Rep. Vasilinda means when she says she is concerned about jobs but the lasting positive economic impact a NPP has on the surrounding community has been well documented.  Finally, just for good measure, Rep. Vasilinda throws in a vague boogeyman statement about “danger” that our children and our children’s children will face.  As proven year after year by OSHA statistics, the nuclear industry is one of the safest major industries in the U.S.

Not to be outdone, Lake Worth City Commissioner Cara Jennings offered the following:

“Scientific research has clearly shown that the entire nuclear process - from minor to transportation, process, use and long-term storage - has negative consequences on public health,” Jennings said. “Even when running ‘safely,’ nuclear power plants release radiation. Radiation is odor-less, tasteless, invisible and deadly even in low doses.”

Not to let facts get in the way of an argument, but you are exposed to 400 times more radiation while getting a full set of dental X-rays than if you lived outside a nuclear power plant for one year.  Commissioner Jennings also offered the following regarding Progress’s plan to replace existing coal plants with the new NPP

“Is this really the best we have to offer the people of our state?” she asked. “Go ahead Floridians, take your pick: lung cancer and air pollution from coal or cancer for your kids and a waste product so deadly we have nowhere to put it.”

All nuclear waste is currently stored safely at the facility where it is generated.  You can read more about the safety of spent nuclear fuel storage here.  While this isn’t a long term solution, it is safe and a long term solution does exist in the form of reprocessing technology being used NOW in France.

As NEI’s Richard Myers said this week “You clearly cannot have a credible program to control carbon emissions without expanded nuclear power.”