Posted on 01/24/2006 10:49:02 AM PST by Alia
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Progress Energy officials say more customers and a higher demand for power are pushing the need for a new nuclear reactor that could be built at its existing Shearon Harris nuclear plant about 20 miles southwest of Raleigh.
The energy company, which serves 1.4 million customers in the Carolinas, said it chose Shearon Harris after evaluating 13 potential locations in North Carolina and South Carolina, based on its available transmission lines and proximity to cooling water.
The Harris Plant site was originally planned for four nuclear reactors, but due to changing economic conditions in the 1970s and 1980s, only one reactor was built. The Harris site offers a large amount of available land -- approximately 35 square miles -- and has an ample water supply, Progress Energy said.
"We already have existing substations in transmission capacity to get that power out to our customers," said Julie Hans, spokeswoman for Progress Energy. "Here in the Triangle area and Carolinas, this is the location of our largest concentration of customers."
Progress Energy CEO Robert McGehee said Monday that the utility has added 29,000 customers over the past year, or more than 550 per week, and must increase its power-generating ability to meet the needs of another 300,000 new customers it expects to add over the coming 10 years.
But critics question the proposal, pointing to alleged security lapses, unplanned shutdowns and the plant's growing nuclear waste storage as signs of vulnerability.
"Progress Energy has not demonstrated the ability to operate a nuclear power plant safely and securely and economically," said Jim Warren, a representative of the local antinuclear group N.C. Warn.... I think the public will be in favor of the smart energy approach," Warren said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...
I am for this nuclear reactor being built. WARN. Ah.. I should have known this group has its "origins" with a University.
Carol Childs of Duke University.
"We're Doooomed!"
Gee, on a nuclear sub or carrier a group of 18-38 year old technicians (most without university degrees) can safely, securely and economically operate a nuke plant. You might want to pick some of them up when they are discharged or retire!
I'm an ex navy nuke submariner.
At the home I sold a month ago, I could see the steam plume from the plant. And the tower on the drive home.
If an NRC inspector went to sea on a Navy Nuke, the write-ups would be thicker than the damn NYC phone book. But the NRC has no jurisdiction over the Navy. It inspects itself and finding are kept in-house, not posted to the world every day.
The commercial nuclear industry is loaded to gills with x-navy personnel from plant technicians all the way up to CEOs. They don't walk on water and they have to be reoriented to the commercial world. The Navy doesn't have the NRC inspectors looking over their shoulders every minute of the day like the commercial guys do.
As to safety and economics, check the records. The US commercial nuclear industry is second to none, including the US Navy. It has tens of thousands more man years of operating experience than the navy. Commercial plants make tons of money, have far higher availability and capacity records that other power generators, and are the lowest cost energy producers in the world. And not a single employee or member of the public has ever been injured in a nuclear incident at one of their plants.
It's all about them. Just amazing... not about the "public good" but about *them*.
Good point.
Liberals always want it both ways, as long as "all ways are theirs".
Worth reposting.
In the past couple of months maybe three new uranium power plants have been begun. This might be the start of a massive construction program across the country; hopefully the wait of 30 years, which coincided with the lack of a moon program at NASA and the lack of the Superconducting Supercollider, is over and we can get back to reality and national oil independence and commercial pre-eminence.
IIRC, it was more than changing economic conditions. Three Mile Island became national news in 1979.
The foundation for the second reactor is already there I'm pretty sure. I grew up within the 10mile radius. Had an alarm horn not 200 yards from my boyhood home near Buckhorn Dam.
Saw that on the news last night.
I'm all for it, wherever they put one. Power from the atom does not scare me.
Do you remember when they stopped construction? Was it soon after the Three Mile Island accident? Seems like nuclear power plant construction came to a standstill about this time.
My perverse way of stating that fact is that more people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than have been hurt in all the nuclear accidents in the U.S.!
I should have guessed that a lot of Navy nuke techs would end up in the industry.
Far more than techs. Across the industry there are hundreds of Nuke Eng grads from Annapolis. I personally know a couple dozen of executives and a couple of CEOs who are Academy grads. A few were full captains -- sub drivers. We used to call them "ring knockers" because they all wore their academy rings kind of like Masons give the secret hand shake. ;~))
They're generally pretty good people, but trust me, as a group, they aren't any better educated, smarter or more quality driven than people who came from university nuclear engineering programs. The industry is full of good people, not just the Navy types. It's an industry that has always demanded quality and attention to detail.
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