Government Technology - September 2007 - (Page 20)

Supply and Demand Volatile natural gas prices, updated nuclear plant designs, demand for a carbon-free energy source and massive government incentives may enable the nuclear power industry to rise again in the South. After more than 20 years of inactivity, the Unit 1 Browns Ferry reactor resumed splitting atoms in May. So far, utilities have announced plans to request federal licenses in the next two years to build up to 30 reactors, mostly in the South. Just receiving a license does not commit a utility to actually building a plant, though. Energy giant Southern Co. announced plans to pursue several new licenses, but won’t commit to building any plants. “We are in negotiations right now with Westinghouse to determine if nuclear energy is the best option for our customers,” said Beth Thomas, spokesperson for Southern Co. “Nuclear is going to have to be cost-competitive with the other base-load sources.” A base-load power plant is one that, in theory, is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and primarily operates at full capacity. Coal, natural gas and nuclear plants are common forms of base-load electricity sources. “[Getting a license] is a very low-cost way of going through step one,” said Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the Cato Institute. However, “low-cost,” in this case, means a $50 million investment, according to Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart Energy Development, a consortium of 10 power companies seeking nuclear plant licenses from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). She said preparing an application for a license takes nearly two years of expensive research, and if printed, the “application” would be roughly 25 volumes of 4-inch binders. PHOTO COURTESY OF TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Browns Ferry This is the fuel storage pool at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Unit 1, which returned to service in June 2007 after upgrades. Unit 1 began commercial operation on Aug. 1, 1974, and its longest continuous operating run is 137 days, 5 hours and 40 minutes, from Sept. 1, 1984 to Jan. 16, 1985. Progress Energy, a Southern utility company, recently announced plans for two nuclear power plants in North Carolina. Natural gas — which powered nearly every U.S. electricity plant constructed during the 1990s — has long been the preferred option for electric power generation. But as the third millennium arrived, the United States’ natural gas supply plummeted far below the “proven reserve” estimates made during the ’90s. Utilities responded with plans to revert to coal-fired plants, infuriating environmentalists. Other opponents contend that power-generation needs can be satisfied by better energy efficiency, more conservation and greater use of renewable energy sources — wind, biomass, geothermal and solar. But those technologies, some say, are too immature to satisfy future energy demands. Meanwhile, utilities insist they will need more “base-load capacity,” meaning construction of massive new high-performance power plants is unavoidable. Since the American public currently appears to favor carbon-free electricity, some utilities are starting to view nuclear power as a reasonable balance. But according to critics, nuclear technology remains unsafe, and some contend the projected need for base-load capacity is overblown, like it was during the 1970s. American Efficiency Though the serious accidents of the 1970s gave nuclear power a black eye, manufacturers say they have since simplified plant designs to make them safer. And, although the United States generates relatively little electricity from nuclear power, American plant designs currently dominate the industry. Though France gets 78.5 percent of its energy from nuclear power and the United States gets roughly 19 percent, France and other countries seek American plant designers for design advice, according to Adrian Heymer, senior director of new plant deployment at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). “We’ve monitored what’s been going on overseas, and we’ve learned from them, and they’ve learned from us,” he said. “In the last six years, more have been coming over to the U.S. to find out how we’re operating the plants, rather than us going overseas. In the early ’90s, it was the other way around. Now, most — like the Japanese, the French, the Taiwanese and others — have come to the U.S.” Heymer said the primary improvement in the new plant designs was their simplicity — they typically use gravity, convection and conduction, as opposed to multiple pumps and valves, to inject water into the reactors. The fewer pumps and valves a plant uses, the fewer areas it has that could malfunction, making nuclear power safer. American nuclear plants also dramatically improved their efficiency due to various material upgrades, Heymer said, which also extended the plants’ life spans. “Our capacity factors have gone from around the 65- to 70-percent mark, as they were in the late ’80s and early ’90s, to an industry average today of 90 percent. We’ve maintained that for six years,” he said, adding that nuclear power plants reduced their staff by roughly 40 percent over the past 15 years, in terms of how many employees it took to produce one Watt of electricity. SEPT_07 Interest in nuclear power is growing because the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects electricity generation in the United States will increase by 40 percent in the next 25 years. Quenching Power-Thirst The power industry and the federal government project a dramatic increase in electricity 20 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - September 2007

Contents Point of View Big Picture ESRI Insert The Last Mile GT Spectrum Profile Nuclear Revival Way Back Machine Intel Insert Tale of TIERS Joining Forces Saving Seniors Site Seeing Quarter Miles Two Cents Products Signal: Noise Digital Communities Contents Our Road Ahead Course of Action Shared Interests Special Report: Foundation for the Future Using Wireless to Save Lives Smart Grids for Energy Conservation Community Governing and Wizards

Government Technology - September 2007

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