NYT:Hopes of Building Nation's 1st New Nuke Plant in Decades

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Hopes of Building Nation's First New Nuclear Plant in Decades
By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: March 31, 2004


WASHINGTON, March 30 — In an effort to revive the nuclear reactor construction industry, seven major companies plan to announce on Wednesday that they will apply for a license to build a new commercial power plant. The last time a plant was ordered but not later canceled was 1973.

The companies, including the two largest nuclear plant owners in the United States and two reactor manufacturers, have not specified what they would build or where. In fact, they have not made a committment to build at all. But they have agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars to get permission to build, and they anticipate tens of millions from the federal government, which requested such proposals in November. The money would go to finish design work useful for a new generation of reactors and to develop a firm estimate of what such plants would cost....

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Industry executives say the prospects for new reactor construction are encouraging because of problems facing competing fuels: natural gas prices are persistently high and coal power stations face stiff environmental requirements. Some executives said they hoped their companies would be compensated for making power without emitting gases that contribute to global warming....

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Whether investors will take the risk depends on estimates of future fuel and electricity prices at the time of approval, participants said. They said that they hoped to submit an application in 2008, and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission might rule by 2010. By then, the fate of the government's plan to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, might also be clear. The lack of a site for waste disposal is another barrier to new reactor construction.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/politics/31NUKE.html