The recent restart of Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA's) Brown's Ferry Unit 1 following a five-year renovation brings to 104 the number of nuclear plants operating in the U.S. Their 100 gigawatts of capacity represent about 20% of the nation's electricity supply. If American electricity demand doubles by 2030 (as the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts), nuclear power's "market share" will fall to 15%. The EIA projection takes into account retirements and assumes the addition of 5 GW through plant uprates and 9 GW in the form of new, next-generation reactors.
Delighted by an irrelevant statistic like a slight drop in market share, naysayers conclude that U.S. nuclear power is already in a slow death spiral. They believe that the "nuclear renaissance" will be stillborn due to the rising cost of plant construction. Analysts peg that cost between $2,500/kW and $3,000/kW, depending on the site and the technology selected.
More of the same
I believe the past and present progress by the U.S. nuclear power industry doesn't justify a gloomy assessment of its future. American nukes now rank among the world's most available, with generation totals setting new records nearly every year. Also consider the number of applications for new plants now or soon to be in the queue of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). "Our staff is expecting up to 17 applications for new plants in the next couple of years, and they could lead to 31 or more new reactors," said Eliot Brenner, the NRC's director of public affairs.
Although not all of these project proposals will become bricks and mortar, it delights me that their sponsors are experienced nuclear utilities. What's more, all of the initial Early Site Permit (ESP) applications are for expansions of existing sites that will enjoy economies of scale. Earlier this year, the NRC approved ESPs for Exelon's Clinton Power Station and Entergy's Grand Gulf Nuclear Station. Two more are already in the queue: for Dominion's North Anna Nuclear Power Station and Southern Nuclear's Vogtle Electric Generating Plant.
The ESP process, which takes about three years, allows a utility to obtain an NRC site approval, valid for 20 years, before making a final decision to submit an application for a combined construction and operating license (COL). This two-step licensing process has been on the regulator's books since 1989 but is only now being used. To date, only the UniStar Nuclear consortium has submitted a partial COL application, for a third unit—to be powered by a 1,600-MW evolutionary power reactor (EPR) from Areva—at Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs plant in southern Maryland (see Global Monitor).
Also, don't forget the two new 1,358-MW units announced by South Texas Project. They will use advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) technology that the NRC has already certified, in part based on its excellent track record in Japan. The complete project is estimated to cost $5.2 billion, or $1,900/kW.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
