Testing the Water for Nuclear Plants

Two separate groups of companies have formed recently with an eye toward applying for licenses that could allow the first new U.S. nuclear power plant to be built in more than 25 years.

The two consortiums intend to work with the Department of Energy to test a new process from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for obtaining a license for an advanced nuclear power reactor.

There is no plan at this time to build a new nuclear reactor, members of both groups emphasized. No company has followed through with plans to build a new nuclear plant since the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history, at the Three Mile Island plant 25 years ago.

Dominion said the first group of four companies submitted a proposal a week and a half ago for a license for Dominion’s North Anna site in Virginia. The proposal is a precursor to the actual application.

The application process is expected to take six years and cost about $500 million, said David Christian, senior vice president of nuclear operations at Dominion, a firm in the consortium.

Dominion’s group also includes AECL Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Canada’s nuclear power reactor developer and designer Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.; Hitachi America, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Hitachi Ltd.; and privately held engineering company Bechtel Group Inc.

A second consortium of seven firms said Wednesday that it planned to submit its proposal “in the next few weeks,” said Marilyn Kray, vice president of project development at Exelon Nuclear, a unit of Exelon Corp.

The companies in the second consortium are Exelon and Entergy Corp., Constellation Energy Group Inc.; Southern Co.; and France’s state-owned Electricite de France. The group has yet to decide on a potential site.

It also includes two nuclear reactor vendors: Westinghouse Electric Co., a unit of British state-owned British Nuclear Fuels; and General Electric Co.

The planned applications come at the behest of the DOE. The agency in November asked energy firms to test the licensing process the NRC set up in 1992 in a streamlining effort. The new process has never been tested.