Progress Picks North Carolina Nuclear Site

By Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Jan. 24–TAMPA — Progress Energy Inc. said Monday that it has chosen a site 20 miles outside Raleigh, N.C., to potentially build two nuclear reactors and that it plans to announce a location for possible nuclear reactors in Florida in March.

If the company moves ahead with its nuclear energy plans, it would be among the first utilities in nearly 30 years to seek permission from the U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build nuclear-powered electric generating units.

There ” is no question the country needs to move forward with new nuclear generation to address fuel price volatility and concerns about global warming,” Bob McGehee, Progress Energy chairman and chief executive officer, said in a news release.

The Raleigh -based power company said it would use a new nuclear reactor design that its maker, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co., says is far safer than any of the nation’s 104 operating nuclear units.

On Monday, Progress Energy announced the possible site in North Carolina is its Shearon Harris nuclear power plant near New Hill, about 20 miles southwest of Raleigh.

The company plans to select a Florida site for two possible reactors by the end of March, Progress Energy spokesman Keith Poston said. One of the sites being considered is the company’s nuclear power plant west of Crystal River in Citrus County, Poston said.

“Selecting a site for possible nuclear generation expansion, first in North Carolina and later in Florida, is part of our planning process to ensure we have the energy our customers need in the future,” McGehee said.

Progress Energy says it needs to build base-load power plants — the type that run nonstop to supply electricity — in Florida and the Carolinas because of a growing customer base and increased demand.

The company added 40,000 customers in Florida in 2005 and about 29,000 in North and South Carolina. In the next 10 years, Progress Energy expects to sign up more than 600,000 customers in Florida and the Carolinas, he said.

“We’re going to have to add a new base-load generation,” Poston said.

“The only base-load options you have today are natural gas, oil, coal and nuclear.

“When you talk about future price projections, certainly natural gas and oil are not attractive,” he said, and nuclear power is the least expensive option.

Operations Would Start In 2016 Progress Energy, the parent company of St. Petersburg-based Progress Energy Florida Inc., started the process in August to pursue licenses from the NRC to build and operate new nuclear power units in North Carolina and in Florida.

Progress Energy hopes to get regulatory clearance to build two nuclear reactors in each state. Poston said each 1,100-megawatt reactor — enough electricity to power a large city — would cost $2 billion to $3 billion.

The company said it is too early to discuss how it would pay for the projects.

Selecting the site and the design are just the beginning of the process and do not obligate the utility to build nuclear power plants, Progress Energy said.

The next big step for the company would be to apply to the NRC for what is called a combined operating license by late 2007 or early 2008. If approved by the NRC and Progress Energy moves ahead, construction would begin in 2010. A new plant could begin cranking out electricity in 2016.

The nuclear power industry, weigh ed down by high costs and radioactive waste, operated under public suspicion since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979 and the world’s worst nuclear power disaster in April 1986 at Chernobyl, in what is now Ukraine.

Nuclear power witnessed somewhat of a revival in 2005, when comments by President Bush in support of nuclear power helped U.S. efforts gain steam.

Radioactive Waste Is Forever However, many environmentalists and consumer advocates still aren’t on board. They argue the nuclear power industry hasn’t solved problems it has had for about 50 years. And companies such as Progress Energy simply are taking advantage of taxpayers’ money offered as incentives by the federal government, they said.

Transportation and storage of nuclear waste remains a problem even for new reactors, said Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste project director for the Washington -based Nuclear Information and Resource Service. There is no permanent storage site for the highly radioactive spent fuel rods that contain uranium.

“The waste problem to simplify this: If you make nuclear power, you get more power for the present but you have radioactive waste forever,” D’Arrigo said.

Angling For Taxpayers’ Money Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, argues that nuclear energy suffers from the “five fatal flaws”: cost, waste, safety, security and proliferation.

Michele Boyd, Public Citizen’s legislative director, said Progress Energy’s plans wouldn’t help the United States shed its dependence on foreign oil.

The company, she said, is simply “angling to receive taxpayer subsidies to defray the costs of applying for a license.”

The licensing process can cost as much as $45 million, and the federal government could pay for half of that, according to estimates from Public Citizen.

“There’s no reason why taxpayers should have to pay for half the cost of applying for a license,” Boyd said.

By Will Rodgers and Mike Salinero. Researcher Michael Messano contributed to this report.

OTHER PLANTS:

Crystal River:

–Location: Northwest of Crystal River

–Operator: Progress Energy Inc.

–Began Operation: January 1977

–Output: 834 megawatts of electricity

–Significance: The plant has been shut down for incidents twice, in 1986 and a 1996 shutdown that lasted more than a year. The plant at one time was cited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as one of the worst in the nation.

Three Mile Island:

–Location: Southeast of Harrisburg, Pa.

–Operator: AmerGen Energy Co. LLC

–Began Operating: April 1974

–Output: 802 megawatts of electricity

–Significance: The plant was the site of the most serious U.S. commercial nuclear power plant accident in 1979 at Unit 2. The unit is permanently shut down. Unit 1 is still operating, and both sites will be decommissioned when the operating license expires in 2014.

Shearon Harris:

–Location: Southwest of Raleigh, N.C.

–Operator: Progress Energy

–Began Operating: January 1987

–Output: 900 megawatts of electricity

–Significance: It is the site of the proposed plant. The plant has never had a shutdown or an accident but has been fined twice by the NRC.

Proposed New Hill Plant:

–Location: New Hill, N.C., southwest of Raleigh

–Operator: Progress Energy

–Output: More than 1,100 megawatts of electricity

–Significance: The new plant would use a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, which has a simplified safety system.

Sources: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Westinghouse Electric Co. and Tribune archives

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