Jul 09 - Augusta Chronicle, The

If they are built.

That's the phrase Southern Co. officials use when referring to the highly anticipated plan to bring new nuclear reactors to Plant Vogtle, 30 miles south of Augusta.

Changing the "if" to a "when" likely will not occur until 2008. That's when the company believes it will be certain - both politically and economically - that it can pull off the $4 billion project that would nearly double the facility's 840 full-time employees and create up to 2,000 construction jobs for four years.

Southern Co.'s Georgia Power, the majority owner of Vogtle, is in the early stages of navigating state and federal regulation. The new power plants, known as Units 3 and 4, could be pushing more than 2,000 extra megawatts of power through Georgia Power's grid by 2016.

Of course, that assumes everything goes smoothly.

"There are a lot of uncertainties between now and then," said Lou Long, the vice president of technical support for Southern Nuclear Operating Co., Southern Co.'s nuclear plant subsidiary. "It's like buying a house 10 years from now but signing the contract today."

The reactors - if they are built - would provide a financial windfall to Burke County, which already collects 80 percent of its property tax revenue from the 3,100-acre Vogtle site at the rural county's northeast end.

Few voices of dissension are expected at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public hearings in Waynesboro, Ga., on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the "Early Site Permit" application Georgia Power expects to file this summer.

"We're excited about the plans," said Johnny Jenkins, the owner of Goldberg Furniture in Waynesboro and board chairman of Burke County schools.

The school system is arguably the best-funded rural district in the state. All-new facilities were built in the late 1980s when Vogtle's first two reactors went online. Burke County schoolchildren, unlike those in many parts of the state, ride in air-conditioned buses and don't have to take classes in portable trailers.

"Vogtle built those schools," said Mr. Jenkins, a school board member since 1978. "Everything we have is paid for."

VOGTLE is the county's largest private-sector employer, but the facility's employees live all over the Augusta area.

"This is a huge boost to the CSRA," Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce President Sue Parr said. "When you look at all of our major employers, they may be located in certain areas, but they have a huge employment base. Those 900 new employees are going to live throughout the region."

New reactors also would boost temporary employment at the plant, which already swells by 800 workers every 18 months, when contractors are called in to change out spent nuclear fuel rods. Business leaders welcome the prospect of additional payroll floating around the region.

"Anytime you get more people, it should enhance business," said William Mizell, the president of William Mizell Ford, adding that more traffic could help his dealership on U.S. Highway 25 just outside Waynesboro. "If we don't see it in sales, we'll see it in service."

Vogtle's two existing reactors, Units 1 and 2, went online in 1987 and 1989 and were among the last approved for construction. Waning public support after the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 sent the nuclear power industry on hiatus more than a quarter- century ago.

But now that fossil fuel costs have skyrocketed and the safety and efficiency of nuclear plants have been well-established, the industry is poised for a comeback.

NEARLY A DOZEN companies, including Duke Energy and Scana Corp., have announced plans to build new reactors, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based industry association.

Nuclear plants, though costly to build, are the cheapest way to generate electricity after hydropower. In 2015, Georgia Power anticipates Vogtle could generate power at a cost of 6 cents to 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to 7 cents to 8.5 cents at its coal-fired plants and up to 10 cents at its natural gas-fired plants.

Georgia Power chose Vogtle, one of three nuclear plants in the Southern Co. system, as the location for its new reactors because the site was originally designed to house four units.

Georgia Power and Vogtle's three co-owners have so far spent $6 million in licensing and pre-construction costs, and they anticipate spending $104 million more before pouring the first cubic foot of concrete.

Indeed, the companies are moving cautiously to avoid the problems encountered while building Vogtle's first two units, which should have taken four years to build but instead took 13. The plant was expected to cost $975 million to build. The final bill, $9.2 billion, nearly drove plant backers to financial ruin.

"We can't let that be replicated ... it was a nightmare," said Mr. Long, a 30-year company veteran who attributed the delays and cost overruns to regulatory changes imposed during the construction permit and operating license processes.

"It's like trying to build a house when you're constantly moving bathrooms and bedrooms around," he said.

THE FEDERAL NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission's new permitting rules, approved in 1992, combine the previously separate construction and operating permit processes into one. The regulations also allow power plant developers to fast-track projects using preapproved designs and reactor technologies, such as the 1,100-megawatt Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor selected for the Vogtle project.

Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer said the utility companies won't know for sure how user-friendly the regulations will be until after the first Combined Operating License applications are submitted in 2008.

"Right now, on paper, it looks great," he said of the federal regulations.

The Georgia Public Service Commission, the state's utility regulatory agency, also will have a say in the project.

In the first of several hearings on the matter, the five-member commission will decide in June whether to allow Georgia Power to track the licensing and construction costs of the proposed reactors so that it may factor those costs into its electricity rates once the reactors are built.

"Probably the biggest part of what we do is scrutinize the costs and what the ratepayer would ultimately pay for the new plant," Public Service Commissioner Stan Wise said.

Mr. Wise, a nuclear energy supporter, called Georgia Power's plans to have the first of the reactors online by 2015 "very optimistic," considering that the new regulatory process is still untested and the country's current pro-nuclear position could change.

"I believe it's probably closer to 2020," he said. "With a different president, a different Congress, you could see a dramatically different mind-set on how we get our energy in this country."

NUCLEAR POWER CURRENTLY generates 20 percent of the nation's electricity, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington- based industry association. The country's largest nuclear plant, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, has three reactors that produce a combined 3,800 megawatts. The two new Vogtle reactors, if they are built, would put the plant in the 4,400- megawatt range, making it the new No. 1.

"Any company that would add two reactors to a site, and do it simultaneously, it would put them up there with Hank Aaron," Mr. Singer said.

New reactors also would usher in a regional economic boom that hasn't been seen since the plant's first two units were built in the 1970s and 1980s.

Longtime area residents recall scenes reminiscent of an old West boomtown. Back then, nearly 14,000 workers were employed during peak construction, and many of them temporarily settled into trailer parks and campsites that sprouted up near the plant.

"I know we peaked out at 1,500 carpenters down there," recalled Tom Jenkins, the business manager for the Carpenters and Millwrights Local 283 in Augusta. He and other labor leaders are excited about the project, though they realize there would be less work the second time around.

That's because 40 percent of the new reactor construction would take place off site. And the buildings that would house the new units would be 45 percent smaller than Vogtle's existing reactor facilities.

"That's still really good for the economy," Mr. Jenkins said.

A decision to build is nearly three years away, but community leaders have already begun discussions on how to prepare for potential growth.

"We want to make sure it's managed in a quality way," said Ashley Long, the executive director of the Burke County Chamber of Commerce, which is coordinating community planning efforts. "We don't want out-of-control growth."

Reach Damon Cline at (706) 823-3486 or damon.cline@augustachronicle.com.

(c) 2006 Augusta Chronicle, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Awaiting the Go-Ahead; It Might Be 2008 Before Nuclear Site Knows for Sure Whether It Will Get Two New Reactors