Earlier this month, the DOE agreed to a $3.4 billion guarantee for the expansion of a nuclear facility in Georgia, and the Obama administration recently asked Congress for more funds to help out more plants. Two proposed nuclear plants in Texas are high on the list of potential recipients.
– Edited by April Murelio –
According to a reoprt in The Texas Tribune, Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Company says That two new reactors could be added to the Comanche Peak nuclear plant in Somervell County.
Earlier this month, the DOE agreed to a $3.4 billion guarantee for the expansion of a nuclear facility in Georgia, and the Obama administration recently asked Congress for more funds to help out more plants. Two proposed nuclear plants in Texas are high on the list of potential recipients.
Nuclear power now accounts for 14 percent of Texas's electricity usage and the case for adding more reactors rests on a rising appetite for electricity. Texas's electric usage last year was 1.3 percent less than forecast, and a new report from ERCOT, the state grid operator, projects that peak electricity use will grow by 1.72 percent annually between 2010 and 2019, compared with last year's projection of 2 percent growth during those years. Proponents point out that nuclear power, unlike coal or natural gas, is free of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with climate change.
"We're very serious about moving ahead," says Jeff Simmons, who is leading the development efforts to add two new reactors to the Comanche Peak plant in Glen Rose, near Fort Worth. The project is a joint venture between subsidiaries of Luminant and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). The companies are hoping to get a license from the NRC by the end of 2012.
A second project is proposed for Bay City. Called the South Texas Project (STP), the site has two existing reactors. NRG Energy and CPS Energy, the San Antonio utility, have applied for an NRC license to add two more reactors as well,.
Some hurdles remain before either project can be built, however. No new nuclear plants in the United States have been started in 30 years. Nuclear plants are expensive to build as each new reactor can cost $6 billion to $8 billion. As a result, many plant operators are extending the life of old plants.
The federal government holds one key to some new plant economics, through loan guarantees. Earlier this month Southern Company agreed to a $3.4 billion loan guarantee for a reactor project in Georgia, part of a $8.3 billion loan-guarantee package for the plant announced earlier this year. The total federal set aside currently stands at $18.5 billion — enough for one more project but perhaps not more.
Currently, there is jostling for a place in the loan-guarantee queue. The South Texas Project is third in line, after the Southern Company project and a plant proposed by Constellation Energy. The Comanche Peak power plant is fifth in line. The Obama administration asked Congress last month to add $9 billion to the $18.5 billion program, which would mean enough for more projects after the Georgia one.
But in Somervell County, Texas, home to the Comanche Peak reactors, there is community support for building more reactors as it will mean jobs and investment.
"We've got to have more nuclear power," says County Judge Walter Maynard. "From a selfish standpoint, it's very viable to our local economy.