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Feb 19 - The News & Observer
The prospect of Progress Energy building another nuclear reactor in Wake County will be aired in a variety of public forums over the next several years, offering ample opportunity for public comment. All sides are keenly aware that public opposition will play a role in whether more plants are built. "When we recently announced that the Harris plant is our preferred site for nuclear expansion in the Carolinas, we cited 'public and political support' as one of the factors that will influence our final decision," said Bill Johnson, the company's chief operating officer, at a nuclear energy conference in Washington this week. "We take this commitment seriously -- in part, because we do not want to get too far down the road with a capital project of this magnitude without having general agreement that it is necessary and desirable." But not all meetings that are open to the public will necessarily be of interest to the public. In fact, the first public meeting coming up, on Tuesday, will be held in Maryland and is designed for engineers and lawyers to discuss technical aspects of Progress Energy's license applications. There will be several such technical discussions between Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineers and the utility staff before the company files its license applications. The public can attend or listen by phone, but may not find the experience enlightening. "It's going to be boring if you're not an engineer of some stripe," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. "A lot of the discussions will not be in plain English." Progress Energy plans to hold community meetings to promote its license application for a nuclear site in Wake County and another in Florida. The company will also make public presentations for groups that request information. Next month, Progress Energy will give a presentation in Durham for the Triangle J Council of Governments, a local government association. The subject: the economic, energy and safety effect on the region of building a new reactor at the Shearon Harris site, 20 miles southwest of Raleigh. There also will be meetings with the N.C. Utilities Commission in which Progress Energy will have to demonstrate that the plant is needed and is in customers' interest. Those meetings have not been scheduled but are likely at least a year away. Meanwhile, nuclear opponents have formed a coalition called "Grassroots Power & Light" and plan to hold their own rallies. The unofficial meetings could be very lively, as the opponents and supporters are likely to attend each other's meetings. And nuclear power remains an emotional issue. Other official public meetings will be handled by the NRC, but they won't be scheduled until Progress Energy files its license applications, which isn't expected for about two years. There will be two types of NRC meetings. The agency will hold meetings locally to take public comment on the environmental impact of building a nuclear reactor. Those meetings will be held in facilities that can accommodate large crowds: motels, public schools, public libraries. The NRC also expects to hold public hearings on Progress Energy's compliance with NRC licensing rules. It would be a quasi-legal proceeding, before a panel of administrative law judges, with legal briefs, counter-motions, expert testimony and rebuttals. The proceedings would take place locally and in Maryland, and are expected to take at least a year, Burnell said. But Progress Energy hopes to have community support lined up long before the official proceedings get under way. The key to winning over the public, Johnson suggested, is not by shutting out or out-shouting the opposition. "We must recognize that ultimate success requires more than our strong conviction that the facts are on our side and that more nuclear generation is the right thing to do," Johnson said at the nuclear conference, according to a text of the speech. "We cannot have tunnel vision about the case for nuclear energy or deaf ears to contrary perspectives." ----- To see more of The News & Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsobserver.com. Copyright (c) 2006, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. |