Vogtle unsure of effect from crisis

Mar 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rob Pavey The Augusta Chronicle, Ga.

Activists and industry leaders were divided Monday over the potential effects that Japan's evolving crisis will have on U.S. nuclear projects, including Plant Vogtle in Georgia.

"Based on what we know now, we don't expect these events to have an impact on Vogtle 3 and 4's construction or its licensing," said Southern Nuclear spokeswoman Beth Thomas.

The company's $14.8 billion plan to add two reactors to the Burke County plant is in the final approval stages for a combined operating license authorizing both construction and operation of the new units.

The public, however, is likely to demand more scrutiny of the industry -- and the permit for Vogtle -- in the wake of Japan's tsunami-induced nuclear crisis, according to critics.

"The image of exploding reactors rightfully will have an impact on the Vogtle project both from a public as well as a regulatory perspective," said Tom Clements, the Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth. "The most prudent thing Georgia Power could do right now is to announce that the fast-track license application for Vogtle will be put on hold while the impacts of the Japanese accident are assessed." Although Southern Nuclear Chief Executive Tom Fanning issued a statement Monday pledging to keep the Vogtle expansion "on schedule and on budget," concern over delays emerged among members of the Georgia Public Service Commission.

PSC member Doug Everett said that design changes and safety upgrades imposed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident led to cost overruns during construction of Vogtle's first two units that pushed the project costs up to 11 times higher than originally projected.

Although the NRC has approved many of the designs for Vogtle, it hasn't issued final approval and a permit for construction and operation. Everett acknowledged that the NRC could delay final approval until scientists determine what could have prevented the Japanese problems and require those features at Vogtle.

Vogtle is in line to receive the first combined operating license ever issued -- and is also the only new U.S. nuclear project so far to receive a federal loan guarantee to help finance the construction.

The Japan situation is likely to complicate the government's loan guarantee program for future applicants, despite President Obama's budget request to add another $36.5 billion to the program, said Bob Alvarez, a senior scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies and former Energy Department analyst.

"Given the combination of what is transpiring in Japan and the tremendous zeal now, especially by tea party elements of the Republican Party for deep budget cuts," he said, "I think the prospects of the loan guarantee program are very dim."

Federal authorities who monitor U.S. nuclear power plants are closely watching the situation in Japan and believe existing programs to evaluate safety and vulnerability concerns are adequate.

"At this point, the safest thing to say is that it is premature to say if there is any effect at all, and we still wouldn't know what that effect might be," said NRC spokesman Roger Hannah.

"If major issues are things like tidal waves, then inland plants wouldn't be subject to those at all," he said. "If there are seismic issues involved, that's something we've already taken into consideration."

Alvarez said new reactor designs such as the AP1000 units planned for the Vogtle site are safer, stronger and immune from some of the vulnerabilities of the 40-year-old Japanese reactors.

However, even the newer units in the U.S. store their spent nuclear fuel in pools, usually outside the containment buildings. Such storage sites, he said, might warrant better protection through mandatory conversion to dry cask storage that would make leaks less likely.

Federal regulators, he said, should also focus more scrutiny on older U.S. nuclear plants that are operating in seismically active regions: "We should take a closer look and maybe put the brakes on extending their lives."