Westinghouse big winner in nuclear power push

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In the highly technical world of nuclear technology, a flurry of reactor-building across the country is being led by just three manufacturers.

But the game being played in the Southeast is even more exclusive.

During the last year, six utilities in five Southeastern states — including Georgia — have filed applications with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the first expansion of commercial nuclear power in the United States in more than two decades.

In each case, the contract would go to Westinghouse Electric Co.

Georgia Power Co. will make its case to the Georgia Public Service Commission in hearings starting Nov. 3 and continuing into February. Among other issues, utility executives are expected to defend their selection of Westinghouse.

If approved by the PSC and NRC, Units 3 and 4 at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle near Augusta are due to begin producing power in 2016 and 2017. Georgia Power’s parent, Southern Co., will incur estimated total construction costs for the new nuclear units of $4.4 billion in 2008, $5.2 billion in 2009, and $4.8 billion in 2010.

Georgia Power signed a contract with Westinghouse and Stone & Webster Inc. on April 8. Japan’s Toshiba Corp., Westinghouse’s parent company, and The Shaw Group Inc. have financially guaranteed the project.

Georgia Power is comfortable with Westinghouse, the Pennsylvania-based manufacturer that built the two existing units at Plant Vogtle.

More importantly, Westinghouse’s AP1000 is the only new-generation nuclear reactor design that is NRC-certified.

Neither GE Energy nor French-owned AREVA NP, winners of most of the new reactor contracts awarded in other parts of the country, have achieved certification.

The wave of nuclear plant construction is being driven by the environment and geopolitics. Additional nuclear generating capacity would lessen the role of fossil fuels in the U.S. energy portfolio, reducing both global warming and dependence on foreign oil.

Nuclear power advocates say advances in the new reactor designs make them much safer than in the days of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Knoxville, Tenn.-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said it’s no surprise that the Southeastern utilities stuck together on Westinghouse. Smith’s group opposes the expansion of nuclear power.

“Utilities aren’t very innovative institutions,” he said. “They tend to look to see what the other guys are doing.”

That sense of camaraderie is reflected in testimony filed Oct. 20 by two Southern Co. executives.

“The utilities that have selected the AP1000 will be able to share knowledge and experience throughout the design, procurement and construction process, as well as during the operating lives of their respective plants,” Joseph Miller and Edward Day wrote to the PSC.

Smith criticized the new nuclear reactors as only “incremental change” from previous designs that fail to address how to safely dispose of radioactive wastes and keep nuclear materials away from terrorists.

The two new units at Plant Vogtle are expected to generate 82.6 tons of used fuel and high-level radioactive waste annually.

“We think there are other less risky, more cost-effective ways to get us on the pathway to energy independence,” Smith said.

But Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s policy organization, said the new reactors will be safer than their predecessors because their “passive” designs are simpler.