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NRC Poised to Award Scana Licenses for Two Reactors on March 30By Brian Wingfield - Mar 23, 2012The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is poised to award Scana Corp. (SCG) a license to build two reactors in South Carolina, the second such action after a three-decade drought.The NRC will vote March 30 on the Cayce, South Carolina- based company’s proposal to build two units at its existing Virgil C. Summer plant, about 26 miles (42 kilometers) northwest of Columbia, the agency said today on its website.The NRC’s scheduling of a vote is a signal that the commission is ready to approve the license. Scana submitted its application to the NRC in March 2008, according to the agency. The company will pay 55 percent of the estimated $10.2 billion cost with Santee Cooper, a South Carolina-owned utility, also a partner.The company will be the second power generator since 1978 to receive an NRC permit to build reactors if the five-member commission votes in favor of the company’s plan. The panel on Feb. 9 voted 4-1 to give Southern Co. (SO) of Atlanta a license to build and operate two units at its Vogtle plant near Augusta, Georgia. Chairman Gregory Jaczko dissented.Scana and Southern plan to construct Toshiba Corp (6502).-designed units, with the first reactors for both companies in operation by 2016. Southern’s second unit may be in service by 2017, with Scana’s following by 2019.Nuclear, GasThe reactors may be among the last built in the U.S. this decade, as a glut of cheap natural gas has discouraged companies from investing in nuclear energy and other forms of generation. A 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, slowed the development of U.S. nuclear power, which accounts for about 20 percent of the country’s electricity.The NRC is also weighing rules to improve the safety of 104 U.S. operating reactors after a triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501)’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan in March 2011. The agency on March 9 approved its first orders in response to the disaster, including a requirement for reactor owners to have adequate emergency equipment in place by 2016 to survive a loss of power.Jaczko opposed approval of Southern’s reactor license because the commission didn’t require the company to adhere to still-evolving rules from the Fukushima crisis. He has not indicated how he may vote on Scana’s application.To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Wingfield in Washington at bwingfield3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net
Michael Hiltzik: Is a nuclear renaissance in the offing?March 22, 2012|By Michael HiltzikAmerica’s nuclear power industry has been pronounced dead almost as often as Rasputin, so it may be a testament to the nation’s appetite for electricity that it’s still looking ahead to a renaissance. The industry’s strongest argument today for its continued relevance is that as the nation’s fleet of more than 100 nuclear plants faces retirement for old age in the coming decades, the only practical way to replace the 20% of electricity they currently generate is by building more nukes.“We’re going to have a renaissance, no matter what,” James E. Rogers, the chairman and CEO of Duke Energy, told a conference of “green” investors in Santa Barbara on Thursday. Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke produces about a third of its energy for domestic markets from nuclear plants, Rogers told me, but will have to start decommissioning the aging facilities in 2031. It expects to receive federal regulatory approval for a replacement plant next year.Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference on ecology-wise investing, Rogers observed that nuclear’s 20% share of nationwide generation equates to more than 70% of the country’s non-fossil-fuel generation. That means that as old coal plants edge into retirement too, pressure to raise nuclear’s profile to fill the gap will intensify, he says.Nobody expects the process to be easy. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission only recently approved two new plants after a hiatus of some three decades, and both, like Duke’s proposed plant, are in the Southeast and in communities that have coexisted comfortably with nuclear plants. Finding new communities willing to host a plant will be tough; and not all existing plants are viewed by their locals as perfect neighbors. That includes the two in California, Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo Canyon plant and Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station — to which an NRC team was dispatched just last week to look into a spate of equipment failures.Industry critics say nuclear enthusiasts overlook cheaper and safer alternatives in renewable technologies. Environmentalist Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, who believes that solar and wind power, supplemented by upgrades to the nationwide power transmission grid, can fill the nuclear gap, noted at the conference that private investors are so wary of nuclear power that despite lavish federal loan guarantees and a huge oil-price spike in 2008, no proposed U.S. reactor projects have attracted private capital.“Renewable energy is what’s eating nuclear’s lunch,” he says.
