Unclear if Japanese nuclear accident will affects plans for Plant Vogtle

Published 7:26 am Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Dalton Utilities President and CEO Don Cope says it is too soon to say what impact the emergency at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will have on Plant Vogtle. Dalton Utilities is a co-owner of the nuclear plant at Plant Vogtle in Burke County, which is in the process of opening two new reactors.

“We don’t know where things will end up in Japan, and from all the reports I’ve seen, I’m not sure that anybody has the full picture yet,” Cope said.

The federal government has approved plans for the new reactors at Plant Vogtle, but Cope said the final operating license is not expected for another year. He said he doesn’t know if the problems in Japan might delay the license.

“Obviously, we the owners, hope that it goes forward,” he said. “I’m certain there will be lots of discussion of nuclear plants and the licensing of nuclear plants, but at this juncture it’s impossible to say what the effect will be.”

Critics of nuclear energy have already called for the licenses to be delayed in the wake of Japan’s tsunami-induced nuclear crisis.

“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, 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.”

But concern over delays has emerged among members of the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Commissioner Doug Everett noted that design changes and safety upgrades imposed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) after the Three Mile Island nuclear event 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. Everett said the NRC could delay final approval until scientists determine what could have prevented the Japanese problems and require those features at Vogtle.

Vogtle is currently 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 Southern Co., one of Vogtle’s co-owners, received that guarantee, but Vogtle’s other owners, including Dalton Utilities, did not ask for any guarantees.

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, I think the prospects of the loan guarantee program are very dim,” he said.

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.”

According to reports from Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi site was not greatly damaged by the earthquake, the problems began after the tsunami washed through the plant, tearing away equipment and parts of the buildings.

Alvarez said new reactor designs like 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 added, might warrant better protection through mandatory conversion to dry cask storage that would make leaks less likely.

Federal regulators, he added, 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,” he said.