"Energy Options: Nuclear" - The New Nuclear (Part 2)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007SUSIE GHARIB: The Tennessee Valley Authority today filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two reactors at an existing facility in northern Alabama. As many as 30 other reactors could be built over the next decade, sending electricity over the nation's power grid. The potential for our nuclear renaissance in the U.S. is why the nuclear energy industry is swinging into action. As we continue our series, "Energy Options: Nuclear," Diane Eastabrook looks at how U.S. companies are designing state-of-the-art reactors and increasing nuclear fuel production.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: The 100 nuclear power plants that overlook America's shorelines and tower over its countryside are in a way, relics of the past. The newest reactors are already 20 years old. Most, like Exelon Corporation's Clinton power station in central Illinois, have been constantly upgraded over the years. Still, site Vice President Bryan Hanson admits the plants show their age.
BRYAN HANSON, V.P. CLINTON NUCLEAR POWER STATION: You can see the technology around us was designed and built in the 1970s, so it's like having the old Sony walkman compared to the iPod phones that they have.
EASTABROOK: In Wilmington, North Carolina, engineers and designers at General Electric Nuclear are crouched over computers and blueprints finalizing plans for the company's newest reactor. GE says its latest advanced boiling water reactor will be ready for sale when utilities start building new ones. The company recently partnered with Japan's Hitachi to roll out the latest versions. While GE hasn't sold a new reactor in the U.S. in two decades, it has sold more updated models in recent years to utilities throughout Europe and Asia. GE Nuclear President and CEO Andrew White says those reactor designs paved the way for the newest ones.
ANDREW WHITE, PRES. & CEO, GE NUCLEAR: Well, that has enabled us to keep our edge in the units in the technology, in the supply chain. All of the supply chain has been set up to U.S. standards, so they're ready to go for any U.S. build that we're looking forward to today.
EASTABROOK: GE and competitor Westinghouse are both designing new reactors they say will be smaller, safer and less expensive than previous models. Among other things, the new systems take advantage of gravity as a passive safety feature to cool reactor cores with water in the event of an accident. Currently, pumps and other equipment operated by workers do that job. The new reactors also use standardized designs which could help reduce construction costs up to 20 percent. Nustart, a consortium of utilities, gave GE and Westinghouse ideas on the new reactor designs. Nustart President Marilyn Kray says even basic design changes could make new reactors easier for utilities to operate.
MARILYN KRAY, PRESIDENT, NUSTART: Sometimes they are as simple as, boy, it would be nice when we design this if all of the valves could be at a level where we didn't have to erect scaffolding. That would save us time in an outage.
EASTABROOK: Experts say a fleet of new reactors, along with potential capacity increases at existing plants, will also increase demand for nuclear fuel. This is GE's fuel fabrication plant. It sits just adjacent to its nuclear reactor design facility. Here, the company brings in enriched uranium and makes fuel rods which power nuclear reactors. GE workers compress the uranium into pellets, bake them and then put the pellets into fuel rods. About 90 rods form a bundle and an average nuclear plant uses about 600 fuel bundles for power. GE now has the capacity to make about 20 bundles a day, but the company says it might need to increase capacity down the road to meet demand. So far, neither GE nor Westinghouse have received orders for new reactors, but Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein thinks it will only be a matter of time before they do.
DALE KLEIN, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONER: Well, I can tell you, from the workload that we see at the NRC, the renaissance is among us.
EASTABROOK: Industry watchers believe if there is a nuclear renaissance, American companies will be prepared with both the technology and the fuel to sustain it. Diane Eastabrook, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Wilmington, North Carolina.
