Exelon Picks Two Sites for Nuclear Plant

By Jim Fuquay, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Jun. 29–Exelon Corp. of Illinois, the nation’s largest operator of nuclear power plants, said Thursday that it has selected two potential sites near the Texas Gulf Coast for a new reactor.

Three other companies, TXU Corp., NRG Energy and Amarillo Power, have also indicated interest in building nuclear facilities to meet what they say is growing electricity demand in Texas.

Exelon announced in September that it was considering a nuclear plant in Texas, where it owns natural gas-fired facilities in Fort Worth, Dallas and near Houston. The two sites it identified Thursday are a 1,250-acre tract in Matagorda County near Palacios, and 11,500 acres just south of Victoria, immediately to the west.

The Matagorda County location is not far from one of the state’s two nuclear facilities, the South Texas Project near Bay City, also in Matagorda County.

Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbit said the Matagorda County site is attractive because it has access to water in Matagorda Bay, is near high-voltage transmission wires that can carry electricity to South Texas markets and is in a community already familiar with nuclear power.

Nesbit said that while the company hasn’t decided to build the plant, it plans to file an application, expected to cost $23 million, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

That would make the project, whose cost Nesbit estimated at $4 billion to $5 billion, eligible for federal financial incentives under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

Nuclear plants also qualify for state tax breaks under legislation recently signed by Gov. Rick Perry.

Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity and about 14 percent of Texas’ power. The state’s two nuclear plants, each with two reactors, are TXU’s 2,300-megawatt Comanche Peak, near Glen Rose, and the 2,500-megawatt South Texas Project, owned jointly by NRG Energy and the cities of Austin and San Antonio.

TXU has notified the NRC that it intends to add two reactors to Comanche Peak, and NRG has said it wants to spend about $5 billion to add two reactors at the South Texas Project. Amarillo Power, a private company, says it has teamed up with Constellation Energy and a French nuclear company on plans to build a nuclear plant near Amarillo.

Ken Kramer, director of the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club, said his group opposes the construction of nuclear facilities and instead advocates cutting demand through energy-efficiency programs. The group also supports building wind-power capacity and increasing solar energy research, he said.

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Jim Fuquay, 817-390-7552 jfuquay@star-telegram.com

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