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Posted on 04/02/2008 10:35:23 PM PDT by Red Steel
31 March 2008 -- South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. and Santee Cooper submitted an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a combined construction and operating license (COL), which, once approved, would authorize the companies to build and operate up to two new nuclear electric generating units at the utilities' existing V.C. Summer Nuclear Station site in Jenkinsville, S.C.
Filing the application does not commit the two utilities to build. Development of a COL application for the new nuclear facilities began in early 2006. The NRC will now n an approximate three-to-four-year review process and could issue the combined license in 2011.
Construction could begin shortly thereafter, subject to approval from the South Carolina Public Service Commission, with an in-service date as early as 2016 for the first unit. SCE&G and Santee Cooper estimate that base load generation will be needed for both utilities at this time.
SCE&G is a member of the NuStart Energy Development consortium. Formed in 2004 by 10 U.S. energy companies and two nuclear reactor vendors, NuStart allows member companies and the nuclear vendors to combine their industry experiences and expertise to contribute to the development of reference applications for reactor technologies, including the Westinghouse AP1000. Those applications contain standard licensing, engineering, technical, quality and safety information that future applicants can use to develop their own site-specific applications more efficiently.
While this is a good development the date of 2016 is really sobering. I’m sure a decent nuclear power plant could be built in less than a year without all the red tape and government regulation.
SC ping!
“I’m sure a decent nuclear power plant could be built in less than a year without all the red tape and government regulation.”
I posted a study here a couple months ago that showed the construction price is also about 20 times what it should be due to the red tape.
If these things are going to be built they will be built in the South. Southerners like nukes. They make good, quite, clean neighbors and pay well enough to buy a bigger boat.
Unfortunately, the race to get a unit in in the South may prompt the typical utility lemming response to construction of plants. However, in this instance a glut of power that, once in rate base, dispatches on a variable cost of $6/MWh is fine by me.
Just think of using nuclear to charge up electric cars or creating hydrogen from water. Hydrogen burns back into water with no CO2 or pollution.
If we kept building nuclear like we did before 3-mile island, we'd be thumbing our noses at OPEC and probably selling extra energy like France does. Of course the oil companies wouldn't like that at all.
In a perfect world, you'd be right. However, nuke plants are built with union labor. That fact alone adds 15 years to the build and generally about a 500% cost overrun. At least that's been the case with several TVA nuke plants.
FWIW, my next door neighbor works at TVA Sequoyah near Chattanooga. The stories she tells about union thuggery that goes on at the plant would curl your hair. I gather from her that there are about 10 "workers" for every job....
Adding in the 2 years for completing an application, makes it 10 years. /shakes his head/
No way. From the decision to build any decent sized power plant, even something as straight forward as a natural gas turbine directly coupled to a generator, takes more than a year.
I was involved in some emergency gas turbines for California years ago. Just to get equipment takes a lot of time and engineering. These things are not sitting on the shelf at Wal-Mart.
http://www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/ap1000_glance.html
No they are sitting on the shelf at Westinghouse. 36 months construction time is cited.
No, it couldn't. You couldn't start from scratch and build a conventional power plant in less than a year. It's a huge undertaking. Five or six years is more likely, and that's with a minimum of red tape.
The problem is not just red tape - the power industry and the government have never bothered to show the US people - via television stories on NPR or the nightly news, that the Navy has used many small nuke devices to run ships for over 40 years. How many accidents have occured? Not many as far as I can recall. BUT who tells this story? the reason for delays is that safety is based on one accident 3Mile Island and there are not stories to replace it. Shame on the government and the industry.
There was a thread on this yesterday. This makes about a dozen nuke plants in the works in the USA.
Most electric is made from coal, then natural gas, then “the rest” (wind, hydro, nuke, biowaste and so one.)
The Palo Verde - the last plant built in the US IIRC - plant in SoAZ took 12 years to build, cost just under 6 billion dollars and is cooled with
wait for it
recycled sewage water. (yuck)
Since they’re applying to build at an existing nuclear plant site, the eco-wackos will be hard put to claim any issues about harming the environment. If it isn’t harmed already, enlarging the plant likely won’t do any damage, either.
Cut that about in half.
And that is mostly heavy oil unsuitable for vehicle use
Yep, residual oil and petroleum coke (like coal) that already had products like gasoline and diesel removed.
EIA, Electric Power Annual
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html
Thanks so much - you have the coolest graphics ever! I guess my search engine is more broken than I thought.
Like the photo of the WPPS plant? Looks SciFi - sitting out in an enpty field....
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