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Utilities prepare for rebirth of nuclear energy
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
Just the mention of Chernobyl can still send shivers up the spine and, though no one was injured, the 1979 nuclear incident on Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pa., continues to bolster critics’ arguments against going nuclear.
Throw in the industry’s historically lackluster financial performance and the millions of dollars wasted on nuclear plants abandoned across the nation during the ’70s and ’80s, and it’s no wonder eyebrows are arching over the slew of companies, including two in South Carolina, planning to ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year for permission to build new plants across the country after a nearly 30-year hiatus on permits.
But then again, these aren’t the days of your parents’ generation. Multi-television homes, computers, iPods, cell phones and other electronic gadgets are driving energy consumption to an all-time high. Utility industries are having a hard time keeping pace, particularly in rapidly growing coastal states.
Typically in the past, utilities would turn to fossil fuels and gas, but coal plants are increasingly unpopular for the mercury and carbon monoxide they cough out, and gas prices are rising along with the socioeconomic consequences on the global scene for a gas-dependent nation.
The comeback kid
Free of greenhouse gases and fully independent of foreign oil, nuclear energy might be the comeback kid of America’s next power generation. And if that’s the case, it appears the Southeast will be the testing ground for its rebirth.
The NRC has reportedly hired additional staff to deal with the wave of applications expected at the end of this year and in early 2008 for nuclear reactor permits.
Of the 21 plants utility companies have expressed interest in building, nine are targeted for sites in the states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia and Florida, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the public policy organization representing owners and operators of nuclear power plants in the United States. The NRC has said that it may take three or four years to issue a decision on the earliest filed permits.
“We think this time around it will be much different,” said Robert Yanity, public affairs coordinator for SCANA Corp., the parent organization for SCE&G, South Carolina’s largest publicly traded utility. “Over time, our safety record has really, really stood out. That has contributed to a more favorable perception of nuclear energy, as (has) the recent dramatic increase in public acceptance of global climate change.”
The company, by the end of the year, plans to file a permit application with the NRC to build one, and possibly two, nuclear plants at the existing V.C. Summer Nuclear Station site near Jenkinsville. SCE&G would share ownership with Santee Cooper, the state’s only publicly owned utility. Upstate, Duke Energy Corp., is planning to apply for the same permit to build anew in Cherokee County on the site of a plant the company abandoned in 1983.
Into the abyss
More than two decades ago, a slowing economy crippled the company’s plans to build there, Duke spokeswoman Rita Sipe said, and the half-built nuke plant instead became the movie set for the popular 1980s science-fiction thriller, “The Abyss.”
The company recently repurchased the land and is in the process of tearing down the old plant that set the stage for the movie about a civilian diving team that stumbled upon an alien species while searching for a lost nuclear submarine.
That just may be the appropriate backdrop for an industry, slowly emerging from a building freeze, looking to boost its contribution to the nation’s power grids. Critics still have concerns about cost and safety, as well as about the radioactive nuclear waste that is a byproduct of the reaction.
“I think as an alternative it should be looked at, obviously it should be looked at, but there are big concerns, such as what do we do with all that waste,” said Nancy Cave, North Coast office director of the state’s Coastal Conservation League.
The utilities themselves wonder where they will find the staff to run the plants given the new technology and nationwide race to get nuclear plants online. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership recently awarded grants of $100,000 each to Clemson University, South Carolina State University and the University of South Carolina to
boost nuclear research programs.
Plenty of factors seem to be moving in nuclear’s favor, said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
While investors have been historically reluctant to back the shaky industry, Wall Street appears to be coming around. It’s been nearly three decades since the Three Mile Island incident in which a mechanical failure caused a reactor to overheat. The feds heightened oversight in the aftermath, and nuclear facilities have a track record of safety since then, he said.
In 2005, Congress passed legislation providing grants for companies that build nuclear, and streamlined the application process, often blamed for cost overruns and abandoned construction sites. Operating and construction licenses will now be offered as a two-for-one deal.
The plants are expensive to build on the front end—two or three times that of a coal-fired plant—and that price will ultimately be passed on to ratepayers.
But once operational, nuclear plants produce dramatically cheaper energy than either coal or natural gas, he said. Also in the mix is a growing public awareness of global warming; Congress has threatened on numerous occasions to pass emissions standards that could require companies to either discontinue or make significant improvements to old coal plants.
“You don’t have to be Aristotle or Socrates to surmise that if you’re putting away one source (coal), you have to go to another, and that’s nuclear,” Singer said.
South Carolina No. 3
Nuclear energy powers 16% of the world and roughly 20% of the United States, but accounts for nearly half of the power consumed in South Carolina.
As of Jan. 1, 2005, the Palmetto State ranked third in terms of nuclear generation of the 31 states with nuclear capacity. According to the Energy Information Administration, the state is home to seven operational generators.
Duke, Santee Cooper and SCE&G say residential and business growth and increased energy consumption has them eyeing a variety of energy sources. All brag of new efforts to support renewable energy such as wind, solar and biomass as well as conservation measures, though they say the grim reality is that such initiatives will supply just a sliver of the state’s energy demand in coming years.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates a 25% growth in South Carolina’s population by the year 2025.
Both Duke and Santee Cooper are also looking to build coal plants, though Yanity said SCE&G is reluctant to move in that direction because of pollution concerns and government mandates for emission standards that appear on the horizon.
Given all those factors, nuclear seemed the best option, he said, in meeting the company’s energy demands. SCE&G estimates that without another plant, there will be an 1,100-megawatt shortfall by 2016, roughly the amount of energy needed to power 800,000 homes.
“It’s almost like the Internet boom,” Yanity said. “Nuclear is the new exciting thing to get into, though we hope it doesn’t turn out like the Internet boom.”
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her directly at mparker@setcommedia.com.
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