NUCLEONICS WEEK NOVEMBER 18, 2004 U.S. nuclear industry on track for revival in next decade, officials say There can be meaningful growth in U.S. nuclear power during the next 10 years, several speakers stressed this week at an American Nuclear Society (ANS) meeting, saying that at least one advanced reactor was expected to be operating or about to operate in 2014. DOE is hopeful NRC will be ready to issue early site permits (ESP) in 2006, according to William Magwood, who heads the DOE office of nuclear energy. His office’s cost-share programs are helping shepherd utilities through NRC’s new ESP and combined construction and operating license (COL) processes. Dominion Nuclear, Entergy, and Exelon are seeking ESPs for possible use at the utilities’ North Anna, Grand Gulf, and Clinton reactor sites, respectively. "If there are new nuclear power plants in the U.S. in the next decade, it will be because of the COL program," Magwood said. Last week DOE awarded a total of $13-million in fiscal 2004 funds to two utility-led COL teams. Dominion received $9-million and the multicompany consortium NuStart Energy Development LLC, $4-million (NW, 11 Nov., 1). The awards were made using the balance of the FY-04 funding for DOE’s Nuclear Power 2010 program, which involves the ESP and COL efforts. The difference between the Dominion and NuStart funding reflects the amount of work that needs to be done now, Magwood told Nucleonics Week. The total cost of each team’s project has been estimated at $500-million, which involves both federal and private-sector money. The Nuclear Power 2010 program earlier awarded $4.2- million to a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)-led team for a cost and schedule study on building an ABWR on TVA’s Bellefonte site in Alabama. The federal utility is trying to keep its options open and has not yet committed to pursuing a COL, said Jack Bailey, TVA senior vice president of power resources and operations planning. In a telephone interview, Bailey said TVA hoped to complete the study, as well as a business model for a new reactor, in May 2005. Next fall, he said, TVA will decide whether to pursue a COL. If TVA proceeds, it also must decide whether it will move forward with General Electric’s ABWR, or one of the designs being examined by NuStart—GE’s ESBWR or Westinghouse’s AP1000. A third option involves the existing partially built reactors at TVA’s Bellefonte site, work on which has been deferred since the 1980s. At a time when vendors are offering turnkey plants, the completion of reactors using old technology seems unlikely. The move toward advanced reactors and other advanced nuclear technologies is a turnaround from 1998, when DOE’s nuclear energy research and development budget was zero, according to Magwood. In 1998, "people were saying deregulation would make it impossible for anyone to build a new reactor," Magwood said. DOE’s new Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which the department wants to be its centerpiece for nuclear energy R&D, will feature an updated advanced test reactor, said John Grossenbacher, who will head INL contractor Battelle Energy Alliance as the new lab’s director. Grossenbacher was part of a panel at the ANS winter meeting in Washington, D.C. that assessed the outlook for U.S. nuclear power during the next 10 years. INL will combine the existing Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory-West, which shares the site. Though DOE’s goal is for INL to be the leading nuclear energy R&D facility, nuclear research also will continue at other DOE labs. The laboratory has memoranda of understanding with four other national labs, Grossenbacher said. Several speakers pointed to the advanced fuel cycle work that will be continued under INL that is aimed, in part, at the development of proliferation-resistant fuel, and strong nonproliferation measures as important prerequisites for growth in the nuclear power sector. The detonation of a dirty bomb or other nuclear device anywhere in the world would jeopardize that growth, they said. If the DOE repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nev. were to be "derailed," new nuclear power plants also might be derailed, Magwood said. Nuclear Energy Institute Senior Vice President Marvin Fertel noted that additional environmental requirements were likely to be imposed on fossil-fueled plants during the next 10 years and that those requirements would increase the asset value of power reactors. The nuclear waste disposal facility planned for Yucca Mountain would be licensed and operating 10 years from now, Fertel said. DOE has targeted 2010 for the start of operations at Yucca Mountain, though the program faces several potential stumbling blocks that some sources believe could jeopardize that date. In addition, Fertel said that Nevada, which has spent decades fighting the disposal facility, probably would be more constructively engaged in the repository program 10 years from now and would be receiving benefits from the federal government as compensation for being the repository site. Though Nevada state officials have continued to oppose any state benefit negotiations with DOE, claiming that would be seen as their acceptance of a facility they consider unsafe, benefit negotiations have gained some support in rural counties on the local level.—Elaine Hiruo, Washington
