Southern Co. can proceed with full construction of the first new nuclear power plant in the U.S. in more than 30 years, a process that began in early 2004 and is expected to cost $14 billion.
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| Plant Vogtle construction site. |
On Feb. 9, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 to give the Southern Co.-led consortium a combined construction and operating license for two additional nuclear reactors at the Vogtle site, about 26 miles south of Augusta, Ga. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko was the lone dissenter on the decision. Jaczko voted against the license, saying the new units should include recommendations from the NRC’s post-Fukushima task force.
The NRC found the staff’s review adequate to make the necessary regulatory safety and environmental findings, clearing the way for the NRC’s Office of New Reactors to issue the COLs. The approval marks the first ever construction license issued for a U.S. nuclear plant since 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident.
The existing 2,430 MW, two-unit plant and the expansion is jointly owned by Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., OglethorpePower Corp., MunicipalElectric Authority of Georgia and Dalton Utilities.
In January 2006, Southern Co. selected the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor for both new units, Units 3 and 4. The AP1000 is a Generation III+ 1,154 MWe pressurized water reactor that uses passive safety systems. It is the first Gen. III+ reactor to receive design certification from the NRC. The NRC certified the AP1000 design on Dec. 30, 2011. The NRC did impose a condition on the COLs requiring inspection and testing of squib valves, a component of the reactors’ passive cooling system.
Coal-fired Power Plants in West Virginia to Close
FirstEnergy Corp. said its Monongahela Power Co. subsidiary will be retiring three older coal-fired power plants in West Virginia by Sept. 1. The decision to close the plants is based on the Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.
Albright Power Station, Willow Island Power Station, and Rivesville Power Station will all be closed. The total capacity of these regulated plants is 660 MW, about 3 percent of FirstEnergy’s total regulated and competitive generation portfolio. Recently, FirstEnergy said these plants served mostly as peaking facilities, generating, on average, less than 1 percent of the electricity produced by FirstEnergy over the past three years.
Monongahela Power recently completed a year-long study of its older, unscrubbed regulated coal-fired units to determine the potential impact of significant changes in environmental regulations. FirstEnergy said it was determined that additional investments to implement MATS and other environmental rules would make these plants even less likely to be dispatched. As a result, the decision was made to retire these West Virginia plants rather than continue operations.
Loss of Navajo coal-fired plant could cost $18bn
A study prepared by Arizona State University on behalf of the Salt River Project and the Navajo Nation says the loss of the Navajo generating station in northern Arizona would cost the state approximately $18 billion.
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| Navajo Generating Station. |
The 2,250 MW Salt River Project-operated coal-fired station employs about 540 people, more than 80 percent of whom are Native American. The plant’s lease and various rights of way with the Navajo Nation are set to expire around 2019 and the NGS owners are currently negotiating extensions.
In addition, regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency could cause the plant to retire. EPA is considering whether to require $1.1 billion of additional emission-control technology at NGS for the purpose of improving visibility in nearby national parks by reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides. Recent improvements at NGS have already reduced NOx emissions by more than 40 percent.
The study, “Navajo Generating Station and Kayenta Mine: An Economic Impact Study, the closure of NGS” by the L William Seidman Research Institute at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, also studies the potential impact of the closure of the nearby Kayenta Mine, the plant’s coal supplier.
The study concluded that NGS will provide more than $20 billion in economic contributions throughout the state for the period measured from 2011 to 2044.
EPA Implements Changes to CSAPR
The Environmental Protection Agency made slight adjustments to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR).
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| The CSAPR ruling is under a court-ordered stay. |
The changes reflect new information with technical merit that was brought to the EPA by stakeholders from a small number of units after the final CSAPR was published. The changes were presented in the form of two different rules, the CSAPR Final Revisions Rule and the CSAPR Direct Final Rule.
The EPA hopes the additional rules will enhance compliance flexibility and smooth the transition from the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) programs to the CSAPR programs.
The Final Revisions Rule revises state budgets for Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin and new unit set-asides for Arkansas and Texas.
This action revises unit-level allocations for Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee to better account for utility consent decrees. This rule also amends the assurance penalty provisions for all states within the programs so they start in 2014 instead of 2012, helping to increase the opportunity for market-based compliance options in the early years of the program.
CSAPR is still under a stay, which was granted by the U.S. District Court of Appeals at the end of 2011. Once the Court has reviewed briefs supporting or contradicting the rule, it is expected that a hearing may be held in April and a decision with the finalized rule could come three to four months after the arguments, said Todd Palmer, an environmental lawyer with Michael Best & Friedrich LLP.
AEP Scales Back Plans to Close Coal-Fired Capacity
American Electric Power Co. said the company would close 13 percent less coal-fired generation than initially planned because of $940 million in support from the state of Kentucky to keep a unit operating there.
The company will close 5,138 MW after seeking a 31 percent rate increase in December to fund emissions control equipment needed to keep the Big Sandy Unit 2 open in Kentucky.
State regulators have indicated that AEP may be able to recover $1 billion from customers that is needed to keep the unit operating.
AEP announced in June 2011 it would retire as much as 5,909 MW of coal capacity because of environmental regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Nuclear Power Plant Cited for Regulatory Violations
Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant will receive additional oversight from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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| Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant will receive additional NRC oversight. |
The NRC issued three violations to Entergy’s 798 MW Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan.
One violation is for a “substantial safety significance” issue and two others are for a “low to moderate safety significance” issue. These violations will result in additional NRC inspections and oversight of the facility.
The violation resulting in a substantial significance to safety is related to a Sept. 25 electrical fault caused by personnel at the site which resulted in a reactor trip, the loss of half of the control room indicators, and actuation of safety systems that were not warranted by actual plant conditions. The NRC said this made the reactor trip more challenging for the operators and increased the possibility of a serious event occurring. The NRC conducted a Special Inspection and determined the plant failed to have adequate work procedures for the electrical panel maintenance work to ensure the job was done successfully.
The violations resulting in a low to moderate significance to safety are related to a coupling failure in the service water system.
The system is comprised of three motor driven pumps which provide cooling to safety related equipment such as containment air coolers and diesel generators. Last August, one of the service water pumps failed due to cracking in one of the couplings. This was a repeat of a previous equipment failure that occurred in 2009. The NRC conducted a Special Inspection and concluded the plant failed to prevent recurrence of the cracking condition and failed to completely consider the properties of the steel used in a past modification of the couplings.
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