Progress Energy's $17B nukes approved by state regulators

Progress Energy's $17-billion nuclear project won approval Tuesday morning from state regulators, who voted unanimously that the the project is necessary and cost effective.

"It's an investment that pays off over time," said Public Service Commissioner Katrina McMurrian.

The St. Petersburg utility could start billing customers for the project as early as January. It remains unclear how it will impact monthly bills. Progress Energy said in March that residential customers could see an increase of $9 a month, but that number may have changed. The utility has redacted its latest estimates from recent state filings.

Progress Energy needs to return before the Public Service Commission in September for a hearing on how much it will charge customers for the project. The cost to customers will be made public in time for the September hearing, although it is unclear when.

"I also find the costs quite daunting," said Commissioner Lisa Polak Edgar. "But I think that it's a step we need to take."

The utility plans to build two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors in Levy County, on the east side of U.S. 19 about 10 miles north of Crystal River. Progress Energy estimates that the pair of 1,100-megawatt reactors will cost of $14-billion, and nearly 200 miles of transmission lines through nine counties at a cost of about $3-billion.

"Carbon-free nuclear power is a strategic asset in our statewide effort to become energy-independent, to reduce our reliance on more volatile-priced fossil fuels, and to provide a balanced approach to meet the challenges of growth and climate change," said Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of Progress Energy Florida.

Florida Power & Light won approval for a similar project in March. At least 20 other nuclear projects are in the planning stages nationwide, including another five that have selected the Westinghouse AP1000, according to the Nuclear Regulator Commission.

Progress Energy still needs to win approval from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The federal licensing application could take two to three years. Progress Energy wants to have the first reactor on line in 2016, and the second completed the following year.

-Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer

Comments

[CYA]

So lets say they start billing customers in January for a plant that hasnt even got full approval from federal government to be built? If it never gets built, do the customers get refunded?

[kevin]

Three important points need to be made. One, nuclear power is NOT carbon-free by any stretch of the imagination and suggesting so is disingenuous. Two, this source of power is unsafe and ranks 5th behind Solar, Wind, Hydro, and Geo-thermal. Three, To assess the public for a Utility's R&D BETTER mean their profit margin is razor thin, with NO OVERPAID CEO.

[Russell Allen]

Can you please give me some Progress Energy shares for my $9.00 investment.

Where there is a will ,There is a way.

[Free Market? For Whom?]

Thank you our elected representatives for allowing a private monopoly to charge us and make as much profit as they can.
No oversight just give them our money as quickly as we can.
Who gains who losses?
What do we vote for???
Our elected representatives do not care and do not wish to concern themselves with the people that elect them but only with the interest that have their ear.
How can this be legal???
Thanks alot!!!

Kevin, it's nitwits like you that are dangerous. How safe is nuclear? Why don't you ask Jimmy Carter? He was an engineering officer on nuclear submarines under Hyman Rickover. The US Navy has been powering ships for 50+ years without an accident. As far as your top four alternatives go, solar isn't a practical stand alone power source. Ask any sailor, Florida doesn't have enough consistant wind. Hydro, hell, the enviros are trying to tear down the dams we already have. I have heard rumors of a volcano south of Tallahassee down in Tate's Hell, but most folks think that may be alcohol related.

[whatever]

Kevin... when was the last Nuclear Power accident in the USA? That would be never. Looking at #'s,Solar, Wind, Hydro, and Geo-thermal may be "safer" but they cannot produce the kind of power needed. Energy costs are sky high and we need more nuclear plants, more refineries, and more drilling.. NOW. In the mean time we need to develop alternative sources...but we will still need Nuclear, coal and oil for at least the next 10-20 years..again.. we need to build and drill NOW.

This project should not be built. We will not see one watt of energy from this plant until 2016, and no one can guarantee that it will cut the price of energy.

No, wait - that's the line against off-shore drilling. My mistake.

[Jim]

Nuclear power has come a long way in safety. New technologies make the possibility of meltdown very minimal. The only problem with nuclear is what to do with the waste. How do we safely store stuff that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years?

[tom]

Jim,

The last good idea I heard was to put the waste at the spot where the tectonic plates fold under. That way we can recycle.

[Jimbo]

There's no need, Jim. France has been recycling the nuclear waste for years now, decreasing the lifespan from a few thousand years to a few decades: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html
That, along with US-mining for uranium, will help break us free from foreign oil and polluting coal, at least for producing electricity.

[paminator]

Even if Florida pushes for lots of solar and wind, you still need to have backup supplies when the wind and solar resources are not producing energy. Wind and solar have availabilities of 20% - 25%. That means an 1100 MW solar farm at $4.4B (assume Ausra's numbers for the 300MW proposed solar thermal farm are accurate) will only produce, on average, about 275MW. You need 4400 MW of solar to meet the delivered energy from an 1100 MW nuclear plant.

Also, ranking energy supplies by electricity cost is probably more useful. In 2007, Excelon energy, an owner of a fleet of nukes in the US, reported that their lowest cost source of electricity was nuclear, at 1.67 cents/kWhr. That is cheaper than oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, ocean current, biomass, waste-to-energy, etc, etc.

Florida is making an excellent long-term investment in nuclear power.

[Solar Joe]

If everybody put solar panels on their homes and businesses, then you would not need solar farms and there would be plenty of energy to go around. Now that would be "Progress" energy.

[Brian]

I have no problem if Progress Engergy wants to build a Nuclear Power Plant, however I do have a problem with the State Legislator allowing Progress Energy's customers to pay for it. If people think that their electric bills will go down in the future as a result of this, they need to pull their heads out of the sand. The only thing that will go down is Progress' energy costs'.

[Tony]

Someone has to pay for it. That would be the user. Do some of you expect the government to pay? In the end you're still paying. We need the energy...let's build the plant. It's cleaner than oil and coal and quite safe. I don't agree with drilling off our coast becasue of what it might do to our tourism industry but I can go along with a few new nuclear power plants.

[Greg]

Brian--if their costs go down, then so do will your bills...that's how the regulated utility industry works. They earn a set margin which is based on their assets/costs, and that margin is set by the PSC.

[Brian]

Gret--That may be how it's supposed to work, but it hardly ever does. They'll have some high dollar lobbyist up in Washington and Tallahassee working to get that changed. Just like they have some PR person like yourself trolling these message boards to do damage control. Take a community poll and you'll find out just how much disdain the public has for Progress Energy.

Disdain looks to be a pretty common commodity, especially in Buzz posts. We do love our air conditioning though, don't we?

Looks like the Progress Energy paid bloggers (PR staff) are earning their money today!

Don't forget this is the same company that is required to contribute a small portion of your monthly bill to a fund to cover hurricane damages. Then, after the big storms a few years ago, convinced the PSC to allow them to pass those costs onto consumers instead. This allowed them to keep all that accumulated money in their reserves and thus earned a healthy bump in their stock price.

Which is, obviously, all they care about.

[Bob]

The money put asside for hurricane damages a few years back barely paid a fraction of the damages caused. Solar, wind, and hydro isn't an applicable source of power in Florida--do some research. Would it be better to build another coal or oil power plant? Or how about rolling black outs... I'm sure that would only give everyone something else to complain about.

[Don in St. Pete]

While many of the people on this blog are touching upon solutions, a nuclear ( although I am personally opposed to it ) may need to be part of the short term solution. There are many camps of though and most ( escept the pro-drilling lobby ) have some part in the overall equation. The US department of Energy has done extensive research and we could reduce our dependency on foreign oil by 75% in 10 years, If we had a leader who would take charge of this country and not pander to big oil. Here is an example of a plan by a Billionaire Texas OILMAN, to help wean us off foreign oil.

www.pickensplan.com

T. Boone Pickens has shown, with data backed up by the US dept. of Energy that intensive use of wind power could reduce our dependence onoil by 20%. Data by the US Dept. of Energy suggests that the same type of committment to solar in the SW could further reduce our use of fossil fuels by 17%.

[chris in FL]

In 1997, in the 20 countries which account for most of the world's nuclear power generation, spent fuel storage capacity at the reactors was 148,000 tonnes, with 59% of this utilized. However, a number of nuclear power plants in countries that do not reprocess had nearly filled their spent fuel pools, and resorted to Away-from-reactor storage (AFRS). AFRS capacity in 1997 was 78,000 tonnes, with 44% utilized, and annual additions of about 12,000 tonnes. AFRS cannot be expanded forever, and the lead times for final disposal sites have proven to be unpredictable (see below).

In 1989 and 1992, France commissioned commercial plants to vitrify HLW left over from reprocessing oxide fuel, although there are adequate facilities elsewhere, notably in the United Kingdom and Belgium. The capacity of these western European plants is 2,500 canisters (1000 t) a year, and some have been operating for 18 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_waste

[chris in FL]

Do we need more power? I dont think so. Too many Bubba's out there with the extra frige in the garage, needs to go pal. Find a new way to chill your deer meat and beer. The problems with nuclear energy have little to do with it being safe. It is about running out of storage for its waste. 90% of you have no idea how many reactors there are in this country, or how many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste there is. The Nevada plan for underground storage is hanging by a thread. There are no plans, it is all stored right in your backyards you morons! So go ahead, drink more water its plenty safe. If you do end up with cancer I'm sure someone will tell you it was your deoderant rather than your ground water.

[Don in St. Pete]

Chris is right to a degree. One all currently stored nuclear waste is moved to Yucca Mountail, it would only have a few more years before it would need to be sealed. Of even greater concern is that there are issue with some waste containers at a couple of military reactors in kentucky and Washington, where it has been deemed they are too dangerous to moved and will need to be entombed on site. Wind and solar alone would not suffice in Florida as both are too sporadic. However, if you can get enough going to shut down coal plants that would be a start. A national electricity grid is the true solution with wind farms up through the great plains and solar in the southwest. For a start to this solution, check out the following website by Billionaire Geologist and Texas Oilman T. Boone Pickens, who is also an advocate of wind energy.

www.pickensplan.com

[paminator]

Solar Joe- Residential solar PV is the most expensive type of solar energy source. I picked thermal solar farms to be generous, because they are by far the cheapest type of solar power available. Residential grid-tied solar PV (with no local battery storage) will more than double the costs compared with thermal solar farms. Including battery backup at each home will double the cost yet again.

And in the end, you STILL need more baseload energy supplies to cover cloudy days, or big transmission lines to transfer power from nearby states who build generation facilities (think CA).

Nuclear waste storage is a political issue, not a technology issue. Although AFSR waste storage sites "cannot be expanded forever", storing a thousand times more reactor waste than is currently sited has no technical barriers.

[dan]

Many are thinking a new plant will reduce costs. We are a supply/demand commodity consumer, the question that should be asked is what will the cost of electricity be if demand grows and production says level. Demand for oil has gone up, production is level and has not increased in the last 4 years and now we have $4 a gallon gas. Are we headed to $1 dollar a kW electricity? Or higher? New production will reduce the supply side economics and potentially keep electricity affordable.