Utility plans up to 4 nuclear reactors

Progress Energy said Tuesday that it will apply for licenses to build as many as four nuclear reactors, marking the nation's most ambitious nuclear construction program in two decades.

The Raleigh-based utility announced it would develop two nuclear sites, one in Florida and the other in the Carolinas. Each site could accommodate two reactors. Officials expect to pick the sites this year.

Company representatives made the surprise announcement during a public meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, Md. Progress Energy had previously said it would pick just one site this year for a new nuclear plant, as have at least five other utilities, including Duke Power in Charlotte.

"What Progress discussed today is the largest proposed application that we have seen so far," said commission spokesman Scott Burnell.

Progress Energy has 2.9 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida, and has said it will need new sources of power to meet rising customer demand in the coming decades.

The utility, which is the only Fortune 500 company based in the Triangle, now operates five nuclear reactors in three states, including the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County. Shearon Harris was designed for four reactors but ended up with just one unit after delays and spiraling costs in the 1980s caused plans to be scaled back.

Shearon Harris has space for new reactors and is a strong candidate for expansion, Progress Energy Chief Executive Bob McGehee has said.

The company could expand existing nuclear plants in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, or it could develop a new site. Progress Energy could submit applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2008, begin construction two years later and begin operating the first reactors as early as 2015, when the company expects to have 3.6 million customers.

"We're clearly moving aggressively ahead toward constructing two new nuclear plants in Florida and the Carolinas," said company spokesman Keith Poston.

Filing for an NRC license does not commit Progress Energy to building a nuclear plant, though prospects for the nuclear industry look better today than they have in two decades.

A federal energy bill passed this year includes up to $2 billion per reactor in incentives for the first utilities that build nuclear plants. States and communities also are expected to offer generous incentive packages to lure nuclear plants.

But Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the license applications are part of an elaborate strategy to position nuclear power for federal subsidies.

"This is a theoretical exercise," he said. "It's a sort-of dance now where the industry will express some interest and expect the government to pony up more. They're just feeling out the climate."

Another industry critic, Jim Warren of the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, said nuclear power is a health hazard, as well as a financial gamble.

"It's tailor-made for some utility to go bankrupt trying it," said Warren, who attended the NRC meeting in Maryland. "There's just a vast amount of uncertainty."

The NRC could potentially receive more than a half-dozen license requests. The voluminous applications can take as long as five years to review.

Nuclear opponents are expected to file legal challenges.

The NRC applications have to be filed far in advance of deciding whether to build a plant because of the complexity of the federal licensing process. A final decision on whether to build more nuclear reactors would come in 2008 or 2009, Poston said.

Progress Energy could decide to build a plant that uses coal or another fuel.

Another complicating factor is that none of the three reactor designs under review by Progress Energy has ever been built. Two designs are years from NRC approval.

The four reactors would not all be built at the same time, said Progress Energy spokesman Rick Kimble. The NRC license is good for 20 years, which would let the company decide later whether to add a second reactor to each site.

Staff writer John Murawski can be reached at 829-8932 or murawski@newsobserver.com.