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Showing posts with label Plant Vogtle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plant Vogtle. Show all posts
Friday, July 26, 2013
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Nuclear power plant construction costs approved by Georgia PSC
The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) on August 21 in a 5-0 vote approved Georgia Power's spending on Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 for the period including July 1, 2011 through Dec. 31, 2011. The construction costs of Vogtle units 3 and 4 are monitored by the PSC via monthly filings and construction monitoring reports that are filed every six months.
At the Vogtle site where two 1,100 MW Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are being built, work has been done on turbine islands, cooling towers and nuclear islands. Over the next several months, Georgia Power said, progress will continue to be made in the nuclear island, turbine building and module assemblies.
Major components will begin arriving to the site later this year and early 2013, the first of which will be the reactor vessel for Unit 3. The Unit 3 condensers have arrived from South Korea, where they were manufactured.
The facility provides $2.2 billion more value to customers than the next best available technology, including natural gas generation, according to PSC staff. Georgia Power, the largest subsidiary of Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), said it is in position to provide customers with up to $2 billion in potential benefits in the form of savings related to recovering financing costs during construction, Department of Energy loan guarantee, production tax credits, lower-than-forecast interest rates and lower-than-forecast commodity costs.
READ MORE....
At the Vogtle site where two 1,100 MW Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are being built, work has been done on turbine islands, cooling towers and nuclear islands. Over the next several months, Georgia Power said, progress will continue to be made in the nuclear island, turbine building and module assemblies.
Major components will begin arriving to the site later this year and early 2013, the first of which will be the reactor vessel for Unit 3. The Unit 3 condensers have arrived from South Korea, where they were manufactured.
The facility provides $2.2 billion more value to customers than the next best available technology, including natural gas generation, according to PSC staff. Georgia Power, the largest subsidiary of Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), said it is in position to provide customers with up to $2 billion in potential benefits in the form of savings related to recovering financing costs during construction, Department of Energy loan guarantee, production tax credits, lower-than-forecast interest rates and lower-than-forecast commodity costs.
READ MORE....
Monday, July 16, 2012
Building costs rise at U.S. nuclear sites
ATLANTA — America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age.
Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches as mundane as misshapen metal bars have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings.
Those problems, along with jangled nerves from last year's meltdown in Japan and the lure of cheap natural gas, could discourage utilities from sinking cash into new reactors, experts said. The building slowdown would be another blow to the so-called nuclear renaissance, a drive over the past decade to build 30 new reactors to meet the country's growing power needs. Industry watchers now say that only a handful will be built this decade.
"People are looking at these things very carefully," said Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Inexpensive gas alone, he said, "is casting a pretty long shadow over the prospects" for construction of new nuclear plants.
The AP's review of pending projects found:
— Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia, initially estimated to cost $14 billion, has run into more than $800 million in extra charges related to licensing delays. A state monitor has said bluntly that co-owner Southern Co. can't stick to its budget. The plant, whose first reactor was supposed to be operational by April 2016, is now delayed seven months.
— The long-mothballed Watts Bar power plant in eastern Tennessee, initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, will cost up to $2 billion more, the Tennessee Valley Authority concluded this spring. The utility said its initial budget underestimated how much work was needed to finish the plant and wasted money by not completing more design work before starting construction. The project had been targeted to finish in 2012, but has been postponed until 2015.
— Plant Summer in South Carolina, expected to cost around $10.5 billion, has seen costs jump by $670 million; but with lower interest rates and cheaper-than-expected labor; the owners assert the project is still on or under budget. A deadline to put the first new reactor online has been delayed from 2016 to 2017; the second reactor is now eight months ahead of schedule, targeted for early 2018.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Southern 1Q Profit Down On Warm Weather, Awaiting Loan Guarantee
Southern Co. (SO) posted a lower first-quarter profit as warm weather cut power use, but the company said it expects returns on investments later this year, while it awaits a nuclear-power loan guarantee.
Southern, of Atlanta, has started construction on two new nuclear reactors at its existing Plant Vogtle nuclear complex in Georgia after obtaining federal construction permits in February.
The company has been negotiating with the Department of Energy for final approval of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to finance the project. Obtaining the guarantees is proving more difficult than expected, as the Department of Energy has added new financial conditions following the bankruptcy last year of federal-loan recipient Solyndra LLC, said Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Fanning.
"We're very hopeful we'll be able to reach a successful conclusion, but rest assured...if they ask us to do something that's not in our customers' interest, we won't go forward," Fanning said during a conference call with analysts. "We'll be successful whether we have them or not."
Southern's chief financial officer, Arthur Beattie, added that if Southern doesn't get the loan guarantee, it will raise the money in the capital markets.
"The markets have been in terrific shape to be able to handle that," Beattie said during the call.
Shares of Southern were recently trading 0.8% lower at about $45.51.
The company, which owns utilities in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, has benefited from stronger industrial demand in recent quarters, although residential and commercial demand has grown more slowly. The company said it expects 2012 sales to improve over the prior year, driven by growing industrial activity and other growth as the U.S. economy improves.
Meanwhile, Southern, which is a major consumer of coal, is increasingly switching to natural gas to generate electricity as prices for the commodity have dropped to historic lows, company executives said.
Southern's 2012 energy mix will be 47% gas, 35% coal and 18% nuclear power, compared to 16% gas and 70% coal in 2007, Fanning said. If gas prices remain low, the mix could be 57% gas and 22% coal by 2020, whereas if gas prices spike, it would be 34% gas and 45% coal by 2020, Fanning said.
The company's utilities will burn less than 45 million tons of coal this year, down from 80 million tons it burned in 2007, Fanning said. As the company consumes less coal, it is working with coal suppliers to defer, buy out or renegotiate existing contracts, while storing coal that it has bought but doesn't need right away.
Also driving Southern's move toward gas are stricter federal limits on coal-plant emissions. Southern still plans to install pollution-control equipment at coal plants to comply with the rules, Fanning said.
The utility giant plans to spend about $6 billion a year over the next three years on capital projects, including the nuclear reactors and new power-plant units. The company's utilities are authorized to earn returns on such investments.
Southern reported a first-quarter profit of $368 million, or 42 cents a share, down from $422 million, or 50 cents a share, a year earlier. In January, the company predicted earnings of about 45 cents a share.
Revenue fell 10% to $3.6 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently predicted revenue of $4.05 billion.
Fuel and purchased power costs were down 24%, and non-fuel operations and maintenance expenses rose 2.4%.
Total energy sales, including wholesale sales, fell by 7.3%. Kilowatt-hour sales to retail customers fell 5.1%.
Residential and commercial energy sales, slid 14% and 3.1%, respectively, as warmer-than-normal weather cut energy use. Industrial sales increased 1.9%.
Southern, of Atlanta, has started construction on two new nuclear reactors at its existing Plant Vogtle nuclear complex in Georgia after obtaining federal construction permits in February.
The company has been negotiating with the Department of Energy for final approval of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to finance the project. Obtaining the guarantees is proving more difficult than expected, as the Department of Energy has added new financial conditions following the bankruptcy last year of federal-loan recipient Solyndra LLC, said Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Fanning.
"We're very hopeful we'll be able to reach a successful conclusion, but rest assured...if they ask us to do something that's not in our customers' interest, we won't go forward," Fanning said during a conference call with analysts. "We'll be successful whether we have them or not."
Southern's chief financial officer, Arthur Beattie, added that if Southern doesn't get the loan guarantee, it will raise the money in the capital markets.
"The markets have been in terrific shape to be able to handle that," Beattie said during the call.
Shares of Southern were recently trading 0.8% lower at about $45.51.
The company, which owns utilities in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, has benefited from stronger industrial demand in recent quarters, although residential and commercial demand has grown more slowly. The company said it expects 2012 sales to improve over the prior year, driven by growing industrial activity and other growth as the U.S. economy improves.
Meanwhile, Southern, which is a major consumer of coal, is increasingly switching to natural gas to generate electricity as prices for the commodity have dropped to historic lows, company executives said.
Southern's 2012 energy mix will be 47% gas, 35% coal and 18% nuclear power, compared to 16% gas and 70% coal in 2007, Fanning said. If gas prices remain low, the mix could be 57% gas and 22% coal by 2020, whereas if gas prices spike, it would be 34% gas and 45% coal by 2020, Fanning said.
The company's utilities will burn less than 45 million tons of coal this year, down from 80 million tons it burned in 2007, Fanning said. As the company consumes less coal, it is working with coal suppliers to defer, buy out or renegotiate existing contracts, while storing coal that it has bought but doesn't need right away.
Also driving Southern's move toward gas are stricter federal limits on coal-plant emissions. Southern still plans to install pollution-control equipment at coal plants to comply with the rules, Fanning said.
The utility giant plans to spend about $6 billion a year over the next three years on capital projects, including the nuclear reactors and new power-plant units. The company's utilities are authorized to earn returns on such investments.
Southern reported a first-quarter profit of $368 million, or 42 cents a share, down from $422 million, or 50 cents a share, a year earlier. In January, the company predicted earnings of about 45 cents a share.
Revenue fell 10% to $3.6 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently predicted revenue of $4.05 billion.
Fuel and purchased power costs were down 24%, and non-fuel operations and maintenance expenses rose 2.4%.
Total energy sales, including wholesale sales, fell by 7.3%. Kilowatt-hour sales to retail customers fell 5.1%.
Residential and commercial energy sales, slid 14% and 3.1%, respectively, as warmer-than-normal weather cut energy use. Industrial sales increased 1.9%.
Monday, April 16, 2012
NRC denies organizations request to delay construction on nuclear power plant
Organizations trying to slow down construction of the new Plant Vogtle reactors in Georgia did not get the news they had hoped for from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on April 16 when the commission denied their stay request.
Nine groups have asked the NRC to prepare a new environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Vogtle units that would explain how new cooling systems for the reactors and spent fuel pools would meet new regulatory requirements after the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The groups also said the safety requirements may also change the cost of the Vogtle reactors.
The nine groups - the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Friends of the Earth, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions, North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Nuclear Watch South, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy - in February asked the NRC to delay construction of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors until the court decided their case.
"As evidenced by today's NRC decision, regulators unfortunately continue to ignore the real ramifications that this risky, expensive nuclear project could have on utility customers and local communities," said Sara Barczak, High Risk Energy Choices program director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "There are serious safety and economic concerns that will eventually come to a front. Before billions more dollars are spent, post-Fukushima issues should be dealt with in order to best protect surrounding communities and ratepayers' pocketbooks."
In the public documents made available by the NRC, regulators said they authorized the issuance of two combined licenses (COLs) entitling Southern Nuclear Operating Co. to construct and operate two new nuclear power reactors at its Vogtle Electric Generating Plant.
The NRC also said the petitioners, the nine groups, argue that prior to approving the Vogtle COLs, the NRC staff should have prepared a “supplemental environmental impact statement ” addressing the environmental implications of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident and considering the recommendations of the NRC’s Fukushima Task Force.
The nine groups said they will now re-file the stay motion on construction with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In a statement from the opponents of the Vogtle expansion, they said they contend that construction should not be allowed until the NRC decides whether the proposed new reactors should be re-designed to provide for more rigorous protection against earthquakes and extended power outages.
“To build reactors that might need to be significantly modified later and extensively backfitted in light of new post-Fukushima regulatory requirements risks wasting ratepayer dollars, causing unnecessary pollution, and even possible abandonment of the project,” the statement read.
In January 2006, Southern Co. (NYSE: SO) selected the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor for both new units, Units 3 and 4. The AP1000 is a Generation III+ 1,154 MWe pressurized water reactor that uses passive safety systems. It is the first Gen. III+ reactor to receive design certification from the NRC. The NRC certified the AP1000 design on Dec. 30, 2011. Passive safety, also known as passive cooling, requires no sustained operator action or electronic feedback to shut down the plant safely in the event of an emergency. The AP1000 is equipped with water tanks, which can be emptied into the reactor vessel itself or into containment to flood in and around the reactor vessel. Instead of relying on pumps, the operators can rely on gravity once the fail-safe valve is opened. The NRC did impose a condition on the COL requiring inspection and testing of squib valves, a component of the reactors' passive cooling system.
"These two units will set the standard for safety and efficiency in the nuclear industry in America today," said Southern Co. Chairman and CEO Tom Fanning, during the Feb. 9 announcement.
Southern Co. submitted an application in 2008 for the two new units at Vogtle. On Feb. 9, 2012, NRC voted 4-1 to give Southern approval to construct and operate two new units at Plant Vogtle. The project is expected to cost around $14 billion.
Plant Vogtle nuclear reactor back online after shutdown
A nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia is back online after an unexpected shutdown Saturday.
Southern Co. officials said that the Unit 1 reactor was returned to service Monday afternoon after workers fixed a problem with a water pump.
Utility spokeswoman Amoi Geter said a problem was found in an electrical card in the control room that is connected to a feedwater pump. That pump provides water to steam generators.
The card was replaced. The company said tests show that the electrical part and the pump are functioning as designed
The second reactor at the nuclear plant near Augusta was not affected and has continued producing electricity.
Nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle going back online after Saturday shutdown
ATLANTA | The Southern Co. says that one of its two reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in eastern Georgia will be operating again soon after a brief shutdown.
The Atlanta-based company said in a news release Sunday that Unit 1 was temporarily taken down at about 1:30 EDT Saturday because of an "issue with a water pump."
No radiation was released. The news release says "Southern Nuclear is investigating the issue, and the unit is currently safe, stable and secure."
Southern spokesman Mark Sullivan said Sunday evening that crews were putting safety first but "close to having the unit back on-line."
The plant's Unit 2 has continued full operations.
Southern received federal approval this year to build and operate two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site south of Augusta.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Completion of Ga. Nuclear Plant Could be Delayed
By: | WSAV-TV
Published: March 01, 2012
AUGUSTA, GA -- New documents show that two nuclear reactors in eastern Georgia that would be the nation's first built-from-scratch nuclear plant in a generation might be delayed longer than expected.
The Augusta Chronicle reports that Georgia Power Co.'s latest construction report indicates the project might begin producing electricity eight months later than anticipated. The report was filed recently with the Georgia Public Service Commission.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 last month to issue a permit to Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate the two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site south of Augusta.
The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978.
Published: March 01, 2012
AUGUSTA, GA -- New documents show that two nuclear reactors in eastern Georgia that would be the nation's first built-from-scratch nuclear plant in a generation might be delayed longer than expected.
The Augusta Chronicle reports that Georgia Power Co.'s latest construction report indicates the project might begin producing electricity eight months later than anticipated. The report was filed recently with the Georgia Public Service Commission.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 last month to issue a permit to Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate the two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site south of Augusta.
The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Groups file suit to block Georgia nuclear plant
[Commentary: The same groups that file these lawsuits which drive up costs, create delays, and change the scope of work will then complain about the higher costs of nuclear power and the extended time it takes to build a new plant in the United States. It is an ongoing campaign of duplicity that needs exposing.]
WASHINGTON — Environmental and watchdog groups, including Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy have filed suit to block construction of two nuclear reactors in eastern Georgia that would be the nation's first built-from-scratch nuclear power plant in a generation.
The groups say the plant should be blocked until federal regulators approve safety changes prompted by last year's nuclear disaster in Japan.
Twelve groups, including the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, filed suit Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 last week to issue a permit to Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site south of Augusta. The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978.
"We have filed suit with the NRC and the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit. The NRC will rule first and we are not optimistic that the NRC will rule in our favor because we've raised these issues before," said Stephen Smith, SACE executive director.
Smith said the groups strongly feel that the NRC consider all the facts surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster last year and apply those lessons to U.S. nuclear reactor construction.
"If we are going to be successful, we think that will be with the D.C. court," Smith said.
The NRC voted 4-1 last week in favor of the Southern Co. reactors, with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko casting the lone vote against granting the license. Jaczko said he wanted binding assurances that the new reactors would be modified to meet recommendations made by the agency's task force on the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last year.
Southern Co.'s Georgia Power subsidiary owns 45.7 percent of the $14 billion project and already has spent $4 billion preparing the site and doing preliminary construction 26 miles southeast of Augusta.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Energy secretary: Ga. reactors may spur US growth
February 15, 2012 4:00 PM
(AP) WAYNESBORO, Ga. — With workers behind him already assembling the towering steel capsule that will contain one of the nation's first new commercial nuclear reactors in a generation, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday the Plant Vogtle expansion in Georgia will influence other American utilities weighing new investments in nuclear power.
The Obama administration's top energy official toured the construction site and spoke to workers a week after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for the Southern Co. to add a third and fourth reactor at the nuclear plant about 30 miles south of Augusta.
The $14 billion project is slated for completion in 2017. With delays and cost overruns having plagued the last generation of nuclear plants, Chu said avoiding both could boost confidence among other power companies and investors and spur even more nuclear growth nationwide.
"If this project goes forward and is built on-budget, on-time and on-schedule, that would be a very good thing," Chu told reporters. "A lot of other companies will say, 'OK. We now know we can do this and it would be a good investment.'"
Still, it could take time for the industry to expand. More than two dozen nuclear reactors have been proposed in recent years, but experts now say it is likely that only five or six new reactors will be completed by the end of the decade. The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978.
Critics including NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who voted against the Vogtle license, have cited last year's nuclear disaster in Japan as a reason to slow down until new safety standards can be adopted. Others note that the U.S. has yet to find an alternative site for dumping radioactive waste after work was halted at the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada in 2009.
Southern Co. officials say new safeguards built into the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors being added at Vogtle already offer vast improvements over previous generations of nuclear plants. And Chu said he's "very confident" a new site to store spent nuclear fuel will be found.
"I don't think you should say you have to cross all the T's and dot all the I's before you begin this," said Chu, who has appointed an internal working group to study the findings of a presidential commission that issued its report on the nuclear waste issue last month. "I still assert it is a solvable problem."
Even before it had a license to build a new reactor, the Southern Co. and its partners spent the past two years and about $4 billion preparing sites for the new units at Plant Vogtle. Welders could be seen on the site Wednesday assembling the steel dome that will sit at the bottom of the 215-feet-high, 130-feet-diameter containment capsule that will house one of the reactors.
About 1,700 workers are already on the job site and plant managers say that number will grow to nearly 5,000 at the peak of construction. Once the completed units go online, they will employ about 800 permanent workers.
That's all been welcome news for surrounding Burke County, where Plant Vogtle is the largest employer and helped cushion residents from the deeper effects of the recession felt by rural neighboring counties that relied more on manufacturing jobs.
"Plant Vogtle has pretty well saved Burke County," said Allen DeLaigle, who owns and manages an RV park with his twin brother about 4 miles from the nuclear plant.
Since site preparation ramped up for the new units, DeLaigle's park has filled about 90 of its 151 spaces with RVs and campers owned by workers coming in from other states such as Alabama and Mississippi, West Virginia and Ohio.
The influx has helped boost James Howard Jones' business at Avery's Country Store, which has been catering pulled-pork lunches and eggs-and-biscuits breakfasts for workers at the construction site. Ultimately Jones hopes to score a contract to operate a new cafeteria at Plant Vogtle once the reactors are finished.
Robin Baxley, owner of a Waynesboro office supply store, added two new employees to keep up with deliveries of pens, paper, marker boards and thumb drives to the modular offices set up on the construction site. Her business also supplied the cubicles, desks and file cabinets for many of those temporary offices
"They helped us make it through the economic downturn," Baxley said. "Office furniture is not the first thing people buy when they can hardly make payroll."
Meanwhile, Augusta Technical College and its satellite campus in Waynesboro have launched a 2-year associate's degree program for training nuclear plant operators in order to help local residents compete for the new units' permanent positions.
Apparently not everybody is praising the Plant Vogtle expansion. A group called the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League said Wednesday it's working with local residents to petition the NRC to expand the radius of emergency planning zones around the nuclear plant and improve safeguards in the event of a disaster.
Baxley and others say they're not too concerned, considering Plant Vogtle has been operating without incident since the 1980s. And it's hard to ignore all the new faces — and their paychecks — during dinner out at local restaurants or trips to the grocery store.
"We're in a small town so you kind of know everybody, and there are a lot of people floating around right now that you don't know," Baxley said. "When you see those people you can automatically say, 'Oh, are you here for Vogtle?'"
(AP) WAYNESBORO, Ga. — With workers behind him already assembling the towering steel capsule that will contain one of the nation's first new commercial nuclear reactors in a generation, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday the Plant Vogtle expansion in Georgia will influence other American utilities weighing new investments in nuclear power.
The Obama administration's top energy official toured the construction site and spoke to workers a week after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for the Southern Co. to add a third and fourth reactor at the nuclear plant about 30 miles south of Augusta.
The $14 billion project is slated for completion in 2017. With delays and cost overruns having plagued the last generation of nuclear plants, Chu said avoiding both could boost confidence among other power companies and investors and spur even more nuclear growth nationwide.
"If this project goes forward and is built on-budget, on-time and on-schedule, that would be a very good thing," Chu told reporters. "A lot of other companies will say, 'OK. We now know we can do this and it would be a good investment.'"
Still, it could take time for the industry to expand. More than two dozen nuclear reactors have been proposed in recent years, but experts now say it is likely that only five or six new reactors will be completed by the end of the decade. The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978.
Critics including NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who voted against the Vogtle license, have cited last year's nuclear disaster in Japan as a reason to slow down until new safety standards can be adopted. Others note that the U.S. has yet to find an alternative site for dumping radioactive waste after work was halted at the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada in 2009.
Southern Co. officials say new safeguards built into the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors being added at Vogtle already offer vast improvements over previous generations of nuclear plants. And Chu said he's "very confident" a new site to store spent nuclear fuel will be found.
"I don't think you should say you have to cross all the T's and dot all the I's before you begin this," said Chu, who has appointed an internal working group to study the findings of a presidential commission that issued its report on the nuclear waste issue last month. "I still assert it is a solvable problem."
Even before it had a license to build a new reactor, the Southern Co. and its partners spent the past two years and about $4 billion preparing sites for the new units at Plant Vogtle. Welders could be seen on the site Wednesday assembling the steel dome that will sit at the bottom of the 215-feet-high, 130-feet-diameter containment capsule that will house one of the reactors.
About 1,700 workers are already on the job site and plant managers say that number will grow to nearly 5,000 at the peak of construction. Once the completed units go online, they will employ about 800 permanent workers.
That's all been welcome news for surrounding Burke County, where Plant Vogtle is the largest employer and helped cushion residents from the deeper effects of the recession felt by rural neighboring counties that relied more on manufacturing jobs.
"Plant Vogtle has pretty well saved Burke County," said Allen DeLaigle, who owns and manages an RV park with his twin brother about 4 miles from the nuclear plant.
Since site preparation ramped up for the new units, DeLaigle's park has filled about 90 of its 151 spaces with RVs and campers owned by workers coming in from other states such as Alabama and Mississippi, West Virginia and Ohio.
The influx has helped boost James Howard Jones' business at Avery's Country Store, which has been catering pulled-pork lunches and eggs-and-biscuits breakfasts for workers at the construction site. Ultimately Jones hopes to score a contract to operate a new cafeteria at Plant Vogtle once the reactors are finished.
Robin Baxley, owner of a Waynesboro office supply store, added two new employees to keep up with deliveries of pens, paper, marker boards and thumb drives to the modular offices set up on the construction site. Her business also supplied the cubicles, desks and file cabinets for many of those temporary offices
"They helped us make it through the economic downturn," Baxley said. "Office furniture is not the first thing people buy when they can hardly make payroll."
Meanwhile, Augusta Technical College and its satellite campus in Waynesboro have launched a 2-year associate's degree program for training nuclear plant operators in order to help local residents compete for the new units' permanent positions.
Apparently not everybody is praising the Plant Vogtle expansion. A group called the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League said Wednesday it's working with local residents to petition the NRC to expand the radius of emergency planning zones around the nuclear plant and improve safeguards in the event of a disaster.
Baxley and others say they're not too concerned, considering Plant Vogtle has been operating without incident since the 1980s. And it's hard to ignore all the new faces — and their paychecks — during dinner out at local restaurants or trips to the grocery store.
"We're in a small town so you kind of know everybody, and there are a lot of people floating around right now that you don't know," Baxley said. "When you see those people you can automatically say, 'Oh, are you here for Vogtle?'"
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Southern Nuclear awaits NRC affirmation for Plant Vogtle expansion
By Rob Pavey
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012 12:54 PM
It is a busy week for Southern Nuclear that could culminate with a historic first for the U.S. nuclear power industry.
The company, which is seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval to add two new reactors to its Plant Vogtle in Burke County, Ga., is briefing federal regulators in Atlanta today on the status of site preparation work they hope will lead to the nation’s first nuclear reactor construction in a generation.
Then on Thursday, during a noon meeting at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., the full commission is scheduled to vote on whether to affirm the company’s quest for a combined operating license that would authorize both the construction and operation of the new reactors.
The license, if issued, would be the first of its kind and would also lead to the construction of the first AP1000 modular reactors in the U.S., creating a workforce in Georgia that would peak at about 3,500 during the next three years.
Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman at the commission’s headquarters, said an affirmative vote Thursday would provide staff members with the final components needed to issue the license, which could occur “within days.” The commission, he added, also has the options of denying the license or asking for revisions in the application.
Although federal officials will not predict the outcome of the vote, Southern Nuclear officials are counting on the long awaited approval.
The company has scheduled a news conference in Atlanta – immediately after the NRC vote – in which Southern Co. CEO Thomas Fanning and Georgia Power Co. President W. Paul Bowers will discuss the “historic license for new Vogtle units.”
During the past three years, the site has been transformed from pine forests and old buildings into a secure, reactor-ready complex with footings and foundations for turbine buildings, nuclear islands and cooling towers. Company officials hope to move ahead with the project and bring the reactors into operation in 2016 and 2017.
Environmental activists, meanwhile, turned up the heat today in efforts to block the $14 billion project.
A consortium of nine groups, including Friends of the Earth and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said a joint request will be made to the NRC asking that Thursday’s license decision be delayed to give them time to file a legal challenge in U.S. District Court.
The groups will contend the NRC’s evaluation of the Vogtle project failed to consider the impacts of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The groups also plan to challenge the recently approved design certification for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.
Although the Vogtle project is likely to be the first to receive approval for new reactor construction, numerous other applications remain under evaluation, including SCANA Corp.’s effort to add two new units to the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina.
In all, according to the NRC Web site, there are at least 18 separate combined operating licenses under review for a total of 28 units.
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