Nuclear plant plan causes concern: Proposal for S.C.
facility would draw water from Broad River
May 4, 2008 - McClatchy Tribune Business News
Author(s): Bruce Henderson
May 4--GAFFNEY, S.C. -- Water will be a likely font of controversy as Duke
Energy moves toward building a new nuclear plant, its first in two decades,
40 miles southwest of Charlotte.
The William States Lee III plant near Gaffney would be Duke's first nuclear
plant not built on a large reservoir, as McGuire is on Lake Norman and
Catawba is on Lake Wylie. It would instead draw 50 million gallons a day
from the Broad River, which also supplies Duke's Cliffside coal-fired plant
just above the N.C. line. About 35 million gallons a day will evaporate from
the plant's cooling towers, with the rest returned to the river.
Anti-nuclear groups that will try to stop the plant's construction say the
Broad can't afford to give up that much water. "These reactors have the
ability to have a severe impact on the Broad River," said Tom Clements, a
Columbia-based official of Friends of the Earth.
S.C. officials and Duke say the Broad should be able to supply the nuclear
plant -- except during severe drought. About once every 12 years, a Duke
report says, the plant might have to shut down because the Broad and small
on-site ponds can't cool it. Water use is "certainly something we've looked
at," said Duke spokeswoman Rita Sipe. "We've done a detailed evaluation that
looked at upstream and downstream water needs, and at the effects of
drought." The utility says it needs the plant to help supply electricity to
40,000 to 60,000 new Carolinas customers a year. State legislation that
would require permits for South Carolina's largest water users, including
utilities, went nowhere this year.
Duke and business groups fought for versions that conservationists said
would allow rivers to be drawn down to unhealthy evels for fish and
wildlife. Duke says only that it supports a bill "that balances the water
needs of the region." But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Wes Hayes, a Rock Hill
Republican, said the Lee plant shows "why it's critical for the state to
have licensing in place to have oversight over all water users." Concerns
over cost, impact If Duke proceeds with the plant, and gets required
permits, the first of its two reactors would start up in about 2018.
Opponents have already attacked the plant's cost, which is rising.
Two years ago, Duke had estimated costs at $4 billion to $6 billion. In
December, the utility quoted construction costs at $8 billion to $8.9
billion but said those figures were based on industry estimates. Duke
previously invested $600 million on a nuclear plant at the same Cherokee
County site before pulling the plug in 1982. Farther down the Broad, South
Carolina Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper want to add two reactors to their
jointly owned Summer nuclear plant north of Columbia. Progress Energy has
also proposed building two new reactors at the Shearon Harris plant near
aleigh. Twenty miles to the northwest, Duke is adding a new boiler to the
Cliffside plant, which draws 280 million gallons a day from the Broad.
The expansion will allow the plant to draw 88 percent less water -- but its
evaporation rate will double to 19 milli n gallons a day. "It just seems
like these applications are not connecting the dots in terms of water
consumption and energy," said Sara Barczak of the Southern Alliance for
Clean Energy. The group is challenging the water impacts of two planned
reactors at Georgia's Vo tle nuclear plant on the Savannah River. The Lee
plant would withdraw about 3 percent of the Broad's normal flow to cool the
reactors, returning about 1 percent to the river. The rest would evaporate
and be lost to the river.
South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources will do detailed studies
later. But officials believe the water lost to Lee would be made up for by
streams flowing into the Broad south of the plant. In years with average
rainfall, the department says, he river should be able to safely supply the
plant. "We only run into a problem when we run into these extreme droughts,"
said Bob Perry, a DNR official who coordinates the agency's final
recommendation on such projects. South Carolina has suffered through nine
droughts since 1900, including severe dry spells in five of the past 10
years. Three small ponds on the 1,900-acre site could run the plant at full
power for four weeks if the river can't supply cooling water, says a Duke
environmental report.
But about once every 12 years, the plant may have to shut down because
neither the river nor the ponds can cool it.
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