The great nuclear power debate

SCE&G’s plan to build two reactors goes before state regulators Wednesday

By CHUCK CRUMBO

Thirty years after the commercial nuclear power industry appeared dead, South Carolina is on the leading edge of its rebound.

Nationwide, applications to build a dozen nuclear power reactors — four in South Carolina — have been filed with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

While there is growing public support for nuclear power, its resurgence also has touched off a firestorm of debate.

Advocates say nuclear power is a safe, clean and economical way to meet South Carolina’s future power needs. It also can help end U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Opponents say nuclear power is inherently unsafe and a public health risk. They say utilities should instead explore solar and wind power, and promote conservation.

South Carolina could take its next step in nuclear power’s resurgence Wednesday. That’s when state regulators plan to hear SCE&G’s request to rebuild a rail spur line and begin site preparation for two new reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County.

SCE&G and its partner in the project, the state-operated Santee Cooper utility, figure they’ll spend about $10 billion to add two reactors to Summer, whose lone reactor went online in 1984.

“Financially, this is a big risk,” said Bill McColl Jr., executive vice president of Santee Cooper. “The price of the plant is almost the company’s value.”

But the two utilities need a way to provide more power to the state’s growing population.

“It’s the need that’s driving that decision” to build two new reactors, McColl said. “No one really wants to build a $10 billion plant.”

Approval by the state Public Service Commission of the request to start site work won’t guarantee the commission will approve building the reactors. A hearing on that issue is scheduled to start Dec. 1. Later, federal officials will weigh in.

However, if SCE&G, a subsidiary of Columbia-based SCANA Corp., and Santee Cooper win state and federal approval, the first new reactor at V.C. Summer — near Jenkinsville, population 75 — could be online by 2016.

Also on the drawing board for the Palmetto State are two reactors that Charlotte-based Duke Energy plans to build at its W.S. Lee Nuclear Plant in Cherokee County.

Nuclear power has to be considered as a possible solution to U.S. energy needs alongside solar and wind energy, said U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

“We must develop a smorgasbord of energy choices,” said the No. 3-ranking Democrat in the House. “Nuclear has to be a significant part of the smorgasbord.”

The renewed interest in nuclear power comes three decades after the last license for a U.S. reactor was approved, in 1978.

A year later, the partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania alarmed an already jittery public. Just months earlier, Americans had gone to theaters to watch “The China Syndrome,” a movie about a nuclear plant accident.

Responding to the Three Mile Island accident, federal regulators ratcheted up their scrutiny of nuclear power plant operations, and plans to build new commercial reactors were shelved.

In 1986, the industry was dealt what seemed to be a final blow. More than four dozen people, including children, were killed and tens of thousands more exposed to a lethal radioactive cloud after a fire at a reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine.

GROWING DEMAND

South Carolina finds itself at the front of nuclear power’s revival because of history and geography.

Four nuclear power facilities — in Fairfield, York, Oconee and Darlington counties — already generate 52 percent of the electric power South Carolina uses.

But the demand for power is expected to surge as the state’s population grows.

For example, Santee Cooper, based in Moncks Corner, expects a 16 percent increase in demand by 2020. The utility has 160,000 customers in three coastal counties and provides power to 685,000 more customers through 20 electric cooperatives.

SCE&G, which serves 639,000 customers in 26 S.C. counties, said it needs to increase its capacity 16 percent by 2020 to keep up with the added demand.

To meet the demand for more energy, nuclear power must be considered, advocates say.

They note:

• Nuclear plants don’t belch out carbon dioxide and mercury, like coal-fired plants.

• Nuclear power plants can generate electricity more cheaply and efficiently than those that burn coal and natural gas.

• The uranium needed to fuel a nuclear power plant is mined in countries friendlier to the United States and more stable politically than the Mideast’s oil-producing nations.

However, Tom Clements of the Friends of the Earth environmentalist group says utilities are choosing nuclear without considering other options.

“SCE&G’s application … is lacking as it doesn’t consider cheaper alternatives such as conservation and efficiency,” said Clements, the group’s Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator.

“Alternatives such as wind and solar, which are booming in more receptive parts of the country, were eliminated in SCE&G’s filing with a perfunctory wave of the hand.”

Considering the safety issues surrounding nuclear power, utilities need to look harder at other options, said the Sierra Club’s Susan Corbett of Columbia.

CHANGING VIEWS

SCE&G president Kevin Marsh said his company explored the use of solar and wind power. But the utility ruled them out because of the expense and the difficulty of harnessing the sun and wind.

To generate enough power to match the 2,234 megawatts the proposed nuclear reactors would produce, you would need to cover 62,000 acres — an area about the size of Columbia — with solar panels, according to the utilities’ application filed with the state.

To use wind power would require erecting wind turbines, three deep, along the entire S.C. coast, the power companies said. (There’s not enough of a breeze inland to produce wind power, they say.)

Also, neither solar nor wind power is as reliable as nuclear energy, Marsh said. Energy from the wind would be available only 31 percent of the time; solar would be available only 19 percent of the time.

Advocates also say the nuclear power plants that would be built today are safer than those already in operation in the United States, adding the safety record of those plants still is the best of any U.S. industry.

Politicians — regardless of party — have lined up to support the new push for nuclear power.

Since the 1970s, “our country has had an irrational view of nuclear power,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Other countries safely have adopted nuclear power as their primary source of electricity, Graham says. France, for example, gets 80 percent of its power from nuclear.

Also, France, Japan and Great Britain recycle “spent” nuclear fuel rods, something the U.S. government won’t allow.

“For decades, the French, Japanese and British have all been recycling spent fuel,” Graham said. “Surely, this is an instance where we can be as bold as the French.”

While there have been anti-nuclear protests, the public appears open to a nuclear revival.

With memories of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl fading, polls show 63 percent of Americans favor nuclear power. That compares with 33 percent support in the 1980s.

Still, nuclear power is just part of the solution to the country’s energy needs, said Frank Bowman, president of the industry-backed Nuclear Energy Institute.

“There is no single silver bullet,” Bowman said.

Crumbo at (803) 771-8503.