Posted on 09/22/2005 10:01:41 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - A consortium of utilities narrowed the potential locations for what could be the first nuclear power plant built in the United States in more than three decades.
The group chose sites of existing nuclear power plants in Mississippi and Alabama.
The consortium emphasized that no decision had yet been made on whether to seek a license for a new plant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The group is developing an application for advanced approval of the two sites, which would allow for quicker completion of the project if a go ahead is given.
The group decided the new reactors would be built if a go ahead is given adjacent to the existing Grand Gulf power plant, operated by Entergy near Port Gibson, Miss. and at the site of the yet unfinished Bellefonte twin reactors, owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority near Scottsboro, Ala.
The announcement by Nustart Energy Development, a consortium of eight utilities and two reactor manufacturers, is the latest development reflecting the intense interest by the electric power industry to build a new reactor to meet growing electricity needs.
"Our country needs these advanced nuclear plants. We must reduce our dependence on imported foreign energy," said Marilyn Kray, president of Nustart and an executive of Exelon, the country's largest operator of nuclear power plants.
No new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States since 1973 and interest soured after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. But in recent years nuclear plants have become more efficient and more profitable. Congress also recently gave the industry new subsidies to promote new reactor construction including an "insurance" against financial losses caused by regulatory delays.
At least eight utilities, including all the major operators of nuclear power plants, have been testing the regulatory environment to determine how fast a new reactor might get approved by the NRC. Though no final decision on a project has been announced, several companies have indicated they would like to build a new reactor by 2010.
Three reactor vendors — Westinghouse, General Electric, and the French company AREVA — are competing with different new reactor designs.
Under the Nustart plan, the reactor at Grand Gulf would be a GE designed reactor, while the one in Alabama would use a Westinghouse design.
The Nustart consortium was created to develop an application for a construction and operating license for at least two new reactors. Once received from the NRC, any of the group's members or a combination of members could use the license if it finally decides to build a new reactor.
There's a lot of newly cleared real estate in Gulfport and Pass Christian..........
How about NO?
HEY YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO ONLY POST HURRICANE WARNING THREADS. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
Lake New Orleans is too prone to flooding.
Lots of water for cooling the reactors..........
It's my lunch break........
OK. HOW IS EVERYTHING GOING?
PING. RED BADGER IS ON A NON CAP LOCK POST!
Wasn't Tishomingo county to get one once?
Mississippi is a logical choice for a new reactor because the populace is relatively poor and less organized, and therefore the local opposition will be weaker. This irritates environmentalists, who call this environmental racism (toxic waste incinerators and the like have already been sited in certain poor counties in Mississippi). But the reactor will be good for Mississippi, bringing jobs and a valuable export (electricty) to the state. (And the environmentalists are mistaken to opppose nuclear energy, since the alternative is not solar or wind, but coal.)
SO WHEN DO YOU SUPPOSE WE'LL HEAR FROM OUR FRIENDS AT THE SIERRA CLUB?????
???ANYONE????
If they used coal, it would mean jobs for the two poorest states in America, MI and WV.
I meant MS not MI, sorry.
Why? The site near Scottsboro is already built or nearly so. It has been in the paper here.
They already had two nuclear explosions in Mississippi (Project Dribble).
Local activist groups in Mississippi have already banded together - to campaign FOR the reactor at Grand Gulf.
After the feds almost lost the Battle of Oxford, they had to play the nuclear card.
Southerner's love their nuclear plants. Lot's of high paying jobs out in the country.
The higher the salary the better the bass boat-- leastways, that's what I've seen at all the Southern plants I've worked at/for.
Some environmentalists do support nuclear. Glad to hear folks in Mississippi are supporting nuclear. The state deserves any development it can get. I used to live in Starkville, and the poverty that could be seen in certain areas in the state was depressing.
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