New Nukes
NRG Corporation is expected to file the first application to build two new nuclear generating units in 30 years. The units will go up at the company's South Texas site in Bay City. (When I visited the site a number of years ago, it was known as South Texas Project or STP).
Nuclear regulators expect Tuesday morning to receive NRG's application for two new units at its facility in Bay City,Texas, about 90 miles southwest of Houston. It will be the first complete construction and operating license submission the government has processed since before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.
"It's bold for us as a company, but for energy and the industry, it's a good step," David Crane, NRG's president and CEO, said in a phone interview…..
….While NRG and other nuclear renaissance enthusiasts expect new reactors to come online by 2015, a March report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service predicted the process would take closer to 15 years to complete for several reasons, including the government's new review, testing and approval procedures.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein has said the reviews should quicken once the first license for a certain reactor design is approved. Reactor vendors include Toshiba Corp., General Electric Co., and a joint venture of France's Areva Group and Constellation.
NRG selected a GE reactor design already approved by the commission and hired Toshiba to build the two units, which are expected to generate enough power for more than 2 million homes.
If NRG receives government approval by 2010, the company expects the first new reactor to be ready four years later, Crane said. New plants with similar reactors are being completed in Japan in less than 48 months, he added.
I assume then that the design they would be using is this one, the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). I've worked at both PWR and BWR sites (and frankly, I like the PWR better - but others would disagree. It's just that there's something weird about control rods falling up into the reactor…. Folks in the nuke field will understand that.)
By Lars Walker, Monday, 24 September , 2007 @ 4:46 pm
Hurrah!
By feeblemind, Monday, 24 September , 2007 @ 7:55 pm
‘IF NRG receives govenment approval by 2010…’ THREE YEARS to approve the application? Why so long? It’s not like they have a stack of nuclear power applications to wade through.