U.S. (Nuclear) Renaissance Rockier than Ever

[kristopher]

U.S. Renaissance Rockier than Ever

POSTED BY: Bill Sweet / Tue, August 09, 2011

With nuclear power still controversial at the grassroots and the projected economics of new plants still marginal at best, the approach to rejuvenating the U.S. industry has been to use existing sites. By either building additional reactors at already approved sites or by resuscitating old construction projects, utilities hope to reduce the number of regulatory hurdles, avoid public outcry, and cut costs. But this approach also has pitfalls, as exemplified by the Tennessee Valley Authority's plan to re-start reactor projects at its Bellefonte site in Jackson County, Alabama.

The tawdry history of the Bellefonte complex is detailed in a report released today by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), which commissioned it. According to the report, prepared by nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, TVA originally intended to build two Babcock & Wilcox reactors at the site, and got the Atomic Energy Commission's permission to proceed in 1974. Fourteen years and four billion dollars later, TVA stopped construction, and then, in 2006, it asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to terminate the construction permit. The next year TVA hatched the idea of building two all-new Toshiba AP1000 reactors at the site. But when costs of that project mushroomed, TVA reverted to the idea of completing the original two reactors—one of which was 88 percent complete when construction stopped decades ago, the other 58 percent complete—and got the NRC's go-ahead for that in February 2009.

A dissenting voice in that decision was Gregory Jaczko, who is now NRC chairman. So it would not be surprising if TVA opts for the better part of wisdom, as SACE recommends, and drops the project rather than go back to what it sure to be a more hostile and critical NRC. Today's SACE report enumerates seven categories of problems with the idea of finishing the two reactors, none of them trivial: among them, an obsolete containment made of concrete that's already 35 years old, undocumented cannibalization of reactor components following initial termination of the project, and costly post-Fukushima design changes that will be needed.

The vaunted nuclear renaissance isn't doing much better on other fronts either. Florida ratepayers are restive at being required to already pay for new nuclear plants where ground hasn't even been broken for construction...

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/us-renaissance-rockier-than-ever