The market for new nuclear plants in the United States shows promise in the southeast and in states bordering California, the Chief Executive Officer at Westinghouse Electric Co. Danny Roderick said in an interview published Wednesday.
While foreign markets represent 60 percent of the company's business, Roderick sees more potential in the United States besides the four reactor construction projects already underway – the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina and Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia.
“We still see new plants are going to be built in Florida; we see new plants that are going to come up in the Carolinas. Those are all progressing right now,” the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review quoted Roderick as saying.
The two new Vogtle units are not the only projects expected for Georgia; Florida Power and NextEra Energy are working on a two-unit project for South Florida and Duke Power has a project in mind.
“What you're seeing is the regulated market, which actually does give valuation to 24/7 power and recognizes the need for long-term investments of infrastructure, like a nuclear power plant,” Roderick said.
Roderick complained that the energy industry was not playing on a level field, calling subsidies for renewable power sources, such as wind and solar, “a little bit of a perversion” of the free market.
But he also there was increased optimism over the future for new nuclear plants on the West Coast.
The interest in the west prompted Westinghouse to come up with a design alternative — in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster in Japan – that would be better suited for areas with the potential for seismic disturbances.
“That's why we initiated the new seismic design,” he said.
He said Arizona represented growing demand for power and a rising potential for new nuclear facilities. The company, he said, also envisions increased possibilities for construction “just across the border (from) California.”
What was required, he said, was a substantial water supply and “transmission corridors,” that would allow a plant east of California to feed power to consumers in the state.
Water could be found in the Northwest … “and then a little little further south into the Utah area and some points of Arizona,” he said.