File photo/The Associated Press
This is a 1982 file photograph of
the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, near Port Gibson, owned by Entergy
Nuclear.
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WASHINGTON — The summer of 1979 saw numerous
protests against nuclear power plants around the nation, including a
Mississippi atomic reactor in Port Gibson. The protests even came
before the accident that year at the Three Mile Island nuclear power
site in Pennsylvania, which sparked concerns about safety and the
environmental harm that could come from the relatively new power
source.
But few people near the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power
in Port Gibson today would protest building a second reactor, because
the first has run safely, said Jim Pilgrim, executive director of the
Warren County Port Commission, which is located near Grand Gulf.
Another plant also could lower natural gas prices as well as provide
jobs, he said.
Entergy Corp., owner of Grand Gulf, is
considering building a second reactor in the same area. The company
says the project would create more than 1,000 construction jobs and
several hundred permanent positions.
"We would be very supportive and would actively
pursue the location of the second unit," Pilgrim said. The Grand Gulf
plant "has proven to be a clean and safe operation."
Communities like Vicksburg aren't the only ones
pushing for more nuclear plants. President Bush, members of Congress,
utilities and even a few environmentalists support the technology
because it doesn't cause air pollution or burn expensive natural gas.
Entergy, which owns 10 nuclear plants in eight
states, has filed for a preliminary license to build another near
Vicksburg. But the company won't make a final decision until late next
year, said Dan Keuter, vice president of nuclear energy development
for the Clinton, Miss.-based company.
"Everything would come down to cost and risk and
timing," he said. "But (Wall Street investors) don't want to live
through what happened in early 1980s in terms of cost overruns and
schedule overruns."
Construction of nuclear plants stalled after the
radioactive release at Three Mile Island, and the costs jumped
significantly. Grand Gulf, for example, started producing electricity
in 1985, six years behind schedule and the cost of plant construction
quintupled to $3.5 billion.
Today, a large gas-fired plant costs about $600
million, a similar coal facility about $1.5 billion while a nuclear
unit would approach $2 billion, although no one knows for sure since
U.S. companies stopped ordering atomic reactors in the late 1970s.
One advantage of nuclear power facilities is
that - unlike coal plants - they don't emit sulfur, mercury or carbon
dioxide, a pollutant scientists say contributes to global warming.
Nuclear generators also could replace some plants that burn natural
gas, a fuel that has soared in price over the past few years.
The downsides are that the industry produces
about 2,200 tons of nuclear waste yearly that needs to be disposed of.
To spur the construction of new nuclear power
plants, the federal government has provided tax incentives in an
energy law passed last year. They include:
A tax credit, worth $125 million a year for eight years, to be
provided for producing electricity.
Loans, guaranteed by the federal government, for up to 80 percent
of the construction costs of a nuclear plant.
Risk-delay payments of up to $500 million for plants that fall
behind schedule due to red tape or litigation.
There are long-term fundamental risks to
building nuclear power plants, said John Kennedy, an industry analyst
at Standard & Poor's, a Wall Street research company. It's difficult
to predict the cost of building the first few U.S. nuclear plants or
the price of electricity 10 or 20 years from now, he said.
"We think the Energy Policy Act (signed last
year) has some very supportive provisions to encourage investment in
nuclear power," Kennedy said. "However, we think the incentives may
not outweigh the risks."
One environmental group objects to the
government subsidies being given to electric utilities, most of which
have reported large profits. Federal money will lead to building a few
more nuclear plants rather than a major expansion similar to the 1970s
and 1980s, when nearly 100 plants were completed, said Thomas Cochran,
a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"We don't need to subsidize these first (nuclear
plants)," Cochran said. "Let them compete" with other sources of
energy.
The environmental community is split on nuclear
power. Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace International, supports
the technology because nuclear energy doesn't cause air pollution.
"Nuclear energy has already made a sizable
contribution to the reduction of (greenhouse gas) emissions in
America," Moore told a Senate energy panel last year. "Among power
plants, the dirty and old coal-fired plants produce the most
pollution."
Many in the energy industry think that once the
first few nuclear plants are ordered, it will lead to a renaissance in
atomic reactors producing electricity. A handful of companies have
proposed building up to a dozen nuclear power plants, although no deal
has been signed.
The time to design and license nuclear plants
should drop after the first few plants are approved, and facilities
will become standardized, said Entergy's Keuter. The company expects
that if it decides to build a plant in late 2007, it will take two to
three years to get a Nuclear Regulatory Commission permit, three years
to build and another six months to get operations underway, he said.
"The subsequent ones should get cheaper," he
said. "It looks very promising right now unless something happens."
Contact Doug Abrahms at
dabrahms@gannett.com.
On the Web:
www.entergy-nuclear.com, Entergy Nuclear.
www.nrdc.org,
Natural Resources Defense Council.
www.nei.org, Nuclear
Energy Institute.
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