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By Sudeep Reddy
, The Dallas Morning News (MCT)
WASHINGTON: The US nuclear power
industry is planning for a renaissance, drawing up its first
applications to build nuclear plants since the 1970s.
Just a decade ago, many energy
executives didn’t think nuclear power had much of a future. Strict
regulations had led to costly downtime for reactors. The public
showed little interest in betting billions on new plants.
Instead of fading away, the
industry launched a revival, using a friendlier political climate to
spur a regulatory overhaul.
Rules that had led to lengthy
investigations and plant shutdowns became less restrictive. The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission started embracing industry efforts to
create alternative, less costly regulations.
Today, the turnaround is nearly
complete. The electricity output of the nation’s remaining 103
reactors is at or near record highs.
Republicans and Democrats—and a
growing number of environmentalists—are embracing nuclear power as
a critical response to global warming and reliance on unstable oil
suppliers. Wall Street is warming up to the idea of new
construction.
Regulatory environment
The change in direction came in
large part by reshaping a regulatory environment that often meant
the difference between a profit and loss.
Some industry critics say the
regulatory changes have lowered safety standards, increasing the
risk to the public.
“It’s a must for this
industry to lower its costs in an increasingly competitive
electricity market,” said Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information
and Resource Service, a nonprofit group that opposes nuclear power.
“That comes at a cost to public safety, health and security.”
The industry slowly won over key
lawmakers and regulators in the 1990s. Central to the effort was
reassessing the risk of accidents and breakdowns based on a
plant’s history and industry experience, rather than trying to
protect against an unlikely “perfect-storm” scenario.
“You can focus on what really
matters and get some cost reductions at the same time,” said Tony
Pietrangelo, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Nuclear
Energy Institute, the industry’s trade group.
Industry performance
The effort helped to improve the
industry’s overall operational performance dramatically.
Unplanned reactor shutdowns for
six months or more dropped from more than 120 reactor months in 1997
to 10 months or less for most of this decade. Sharp drops in refueling
times and offline maintenance sent capacity factors from 71 percent
in 1997 to more than 90 percent today. And the average cost of
producing a kilowatt-hour of nuclear power fell 28 percent to 1.72
cents in 2005 from 2.38 cents in 1997.
The performance won nuclear
plants credibility as a reliable source of power. More than 30 new
reactors are under consideration nationwide.
Critics of nuclear power warn
that the bullish environment could end with a single accident. The
1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near
Harrisburg, Pa., led to a public backlash and widespread
cancellations of new projects.
Close calls
In 2002 when workers at the
Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio found a football-size hole in the
nuclear reactor vessel head caused by a boric acid leak. If the hole
had opened up, it could’ve caused a meltdown.
The NRC’s inspector general
later found that the agency’s staff had accepted a request from
the plant operator, FirstEnergy Corp., to go on operating to avoid a
costly shutdown.
Watchdog groups say that’s the
result of relaxing requirements.
“The NRC is trusting the plant
owners more and more to get it right,” said David Lochbaum, a
nuclear engineer and safety expert at the Union of Concerned
Scientists. “Davis-Besse and some of the others show what happens
when that trust is misplaced.”
But industry officials criticized
FirstEnergy and said it wasn’t representative of other reactors.
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