New Nuclear Plants
Georgia Power has reached an agreement to build two new advanced Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants. The new plants would be rated at 1,100 MW (electric) and are to be built at the existing Vogtle plant site, south of Augusta, Georgia.
Westinghouse's reactor, the AP1000 design, is new and has not been used before. Utility officials tout its simpler design and enhanced safety features.
Nuclear power is making a comeback in the United States as the nation tries to lessen its dependence on natural gas and foreign oil as well as cut back on carbon emissions and other pollutants. Based on the state's expected growth, Georgia Power says it needs to add more than 7,000 megawatts of capacity and that nuclear energy is essential to achieving that goal.
While several utilities have hinted at building nuclear reactors, few have actually committed to doing so.
Part of the issue is cost for utilities and consumers. The first generation of nuclear plants throughout the country was expensive to build. Construction cost overruns, combined with the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, stunted the industry's growth in the United States.
Georgia Power seeks to hold Westinghouse to a firm price on the reactors but is not yet sharing estimates.
Estimates have been given in other states. For example, Raleigh-based Progress Energy and Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp. have estimated that two of the new Westinghouse reactors would cost between $4 billion and $6 billion combined.
Expensive? Well, consider how expensive it would be if the lights went out - and stayed out. There will have to be a lot of new nuclear plants in this country very, very soon or there are going to be real problems with the supply of electricity. More about the AP1000 design here. There are significant reductions in the number of safety-related valves and piping and greatly simplified safety systems. (Not less safe, just easier to maintain and operate.) I've been hearing about these for a number of years now. Four of these units are under construction in China right now.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Friday, 11 April , 2008 @ 5:57 am
My cynicism is showing again, but I seriously doubt that these plants will ever get built. The greeniacs will have a cow, and the whole project will be tied up in court for years until Westinghouse dumps the idea.
Remember always that the environmental movement is no longer about cleaning up pollution. It is about power and controlling people. A free, prosperous country is much harder to control than a weak and dying one. Guess which one the greeniacs prefer?
By wheels, Friday, 11 April , 2008 @ 8:15 am
When I was going through the Navy’s nuclear power training shortly after the first oil crisis, one of the instructors commented that we wouldn’t see a major accident at a nuclear plant until there were widespread power shortages in the country, at which point new plants would go up in a hurry with shortcuts taken in construction and operation, which would set the stage for something big to go wrong.I don’t follow the industry that much - I know there are new designs since then such as pebble-bed reactors that are much safer than the pressurized-water reactors I trained on, but I fear that Mwalimu Daudi has it right. In my experience, much of the anti-nuclear actiivity I’ve seen over the years is fearmongering that ignores science and probability."But what if …" is a powerful argument when nobody anymore gets an education that lets them evaluate the odds properly. And "radiation" has long since become a scare word; although the dosage from the radiation releases at Three Mile Island <a href="http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html">weren’t that much</a>, that certainly didn’t stop the hyperventilating.I could go on, but maybe I should try to get my own post out of it
By crosspatch, Friday, 11 April , 2008 @ 9:10 am
2/3 of the plants approved after 1970 were never built. Maybe we can now go back and build plants that had already been approved 30 years ago. I have been touting that Westinghouse AP1000 design for quite some time. The safety features and passive emergency cooling system in that plant is a very elegant design in its simplicity.
By martian, Friday, 11 April , 2008 @ 12:08 pm
I hope Mwalimu is wrong but my gut tells me he may be right - even if for the wrong reasons. I think they are much more likely to be impeded by the anti-nuclear hysterics that think anything having the word "nuclear" in it is the spawn of the devil. Thanks to the anti-nuclear hysteria engendered by the movie "The China Syndrome" that was reinforced by the Three Mile Island incident back in the 70s and the Russians’ later screw-up at Chernobyl, there are two generations of Americans who take the inherent "evilness" of nuclear power for granted. This could make it very difficult to begin building.
By Foxfier, Friday, 11 April , 2008 @ 2:22 pm
With enough nukes and dams, we might be able to get off of fossil fuel plants for energy….
So of course the enviromentalists won’t allow that; same way that they don’t want ANY animal ever listed as endangered to be removed from the list, unless it’s by extinction.
By Steev, Friday, 11 April , 2008 @ 3:38 pm
I sincerely hope there are many more approved (and then built). We need many more reactors not only to cover the growing energy demand in this country, but also to begin replacing the units that are due to come off line/retire.
We really need the Gov to take a strong position advocating nuclear. Perhaps fronting some $$ towards educating the public as to the safety and benefits of nuclear.
Otherwise, Mwalimu may well be correct.