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.
I confess: I had to look up Project Dribble. I lived in Mississippi for seven years, and never did I hear that the state had been nuked! Amazing.
DITTO
I confess: I had to look up the Battle of Oxford.
I didn't know the name of the project, but I met one of the local guys who was a contract employee on it, so I figured that was what was being discussed.
Think of it as a modern day Battle of Lexington, but with US Airborne forces instead of British and Hessians against the citizen patriots.
Of course, the Kennedy brothers from Boston were behind the attack.
BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to September's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled students stood,
And tried to stop James Meredith from registering for classes
Yes, compare what the Kennedys did at Oxford with the much better way that integration was handled at the University of Alabama.
Gov. George Wallace blocks the doorway to Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, June 11, 1963.
Black students were not admitted to the University of Alabama until a federal judge ordered the university to be integrated and President Kennedy sent in the National Guard.
The night of Wallace's stand in the doorway, Kennedy gave a speech to the nation on civil rights. Later that night Medgar Evers was killed in Jackson, Mississippi.
One reason the integration of the University of Alabama may have been less violent is that Wallace probably just wanted to put on a show.
As soon as they can get Arianna out; they'll be coming down to protest in their big new shiny Chevy Suburban SUVs.
The way that Alabama got integrated (and not just the tokenism for the media) involved the USC football team. When USC and its star player whipped Alabama, Bryant made it clear to the university that he was going to recruit, and play, black players, and that they were going to have adjust to that. That's why things went more smoothly at Alabama than they did at most of the southern schools.
The Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Alabama has a MAJOR amount of work already completed. And is probably to that extent already near state of the art. It could save many millions.
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