Jay Nixon, Missouri Governor, And Energy Officials Announce State's Nuclear Reactor Plans

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and energy officials are to announce plans Thursday that could include the development of another nuclear reactor in the state.

The Democratic governor's office called the plans significant for energy development and economic growth in Missouri. Nixon and officials from Ameren Missouri and Westinghouse Electric are scheduled to make the formal announcement Thursday afternoon at the Missouri Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City.

A Nixon spokesman declined to provide further details Wednesday before the planned announcement.

The state's lone existing nuclear power plant is about 25 miles northeast of the state Capitol in Callaway County and is operated by St. Louis-based Ameren Missouri. Officials twice in recent years have attempted to clear the way for construction of an additional nuclear power plant, but those efforts have bogged down in the state Legislature.

State lawmakers in 2009 considered a measure that would have let utilities seek state regulators' permission to include the financing costs for certain types of new power plants in consumer bills before the plant is operational. Last year, legislators considered a proposal to allow power companies to seek permission from the Public Service Commission to charge customers for the cost of getting an early site permit from federal regulators for a possible second nuclear power plant.

A state law approved by voters in 1976 bars utilities from charging customers for the costs of a new power plant before it starts producing electricity. Power companies and other supporters of the state legislation have argued changes are needed to move toward possibly expanding nuclear power in Missouri. But those efforts have faced opposition amid concerns from consumers and industrial energy users about protections for electric ratepayers.

In November 2010, Nixon endorsed the idea of allowing utilities to charge customers for the costs of obtaining an early site permit. At that time, a coalition of utilities that included Ameren Missouri, Empire District Electric, Kansas City Power & Light, electric cooperatives and municipal utilities announced they were considering seeking an early site permit for a second nuclear plant.

Nixon said building a second nuclear plant would create thousands of jobs in Missouri and that the idea included consumer protections.

Last month, Westinghouse Electric said it would apply to the U.S. Department of Energy for up to $452 million worth of investment funds that have been approved by Congress to assist the development and use of small modular reactor technology. The company announced it would apply for the federal funds with a group of utilities.

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Comments

[Genders]

07:55 PM on 04/24/2012

Want to be scared?

Check out the "passively" (NOT) cooled AP1000 design:

http://ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/ap1000_psrs_pccs.html

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) classifies the degree of "passive safety" of components from category A to D depending on what the system does not make use of[1]:

no moving working fluid
no moving mechanical part
no signal inputs of 'intelligence'
no external power input or forces"

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

The AP1000 is MORE DANGEROUS, because they cheapened by cutting corners.

They "don't need backup generators" or a concrete out containment dome....sure they don't.

the AP1000 is equipped to survive a three-day station blackout under certain conditions, but it is not clear that would be sufficient.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-unclear-nuclear-reviv_b_1284561.html

[Michael Mann]

05:47 PM on 04/24/2012

Washington state is home to a diverse mix of clean energy resources: Hydroelectric, wind and nuclear. Columbia Generating Station, located 10 miles north of Richland, Wash., supplies the region as a baseload source of reliable, affordable and environmentally-responsible energy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rqsEnyJ5R2U

[Hikerguy22]

08:03 PM on 05/10/2012

Nuclear power is already becoming obsolete. Solar, wind, and other technologies are advancing at a rapid, while there still is nowhere to put nuclear waste, and the cost of building them keep going over budget. The new reactors in Georgia that just got permitted, are already months behind schedule and no one is saying who is going to have to pay.
Some new inventions such as the Bloombox as told by Sixty Minutes have the potential to get us off coal and nuclear altogether.

[Michael Mann]

02:15 PM on 04/22/2012

Congratulations are due for SCANA Corp. and all of us in the Carolinas. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently approved the operating license for two new advanced-design Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear plants at the V.C. Summer Plant in Jenkinsville, S.C., about an hour south of the Charlotte region.
http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/print-edition/2012/04/20/nuclear-plants-to-expand-regions.html?page=all

[Genders]

03:18 PM on 04/23/2012

Yes, a cheaper reactor that cuts comers by design, and you love it.

AP1000 less safe then old reactors no redundant containment
http://m.chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2010-04-21/groups-say-new-vogtle-reactors-need-study?v=1271900068
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/critics-challenge-safety-of-new-nuclear-reactor-design/?src=busln

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-grossman/as-if-a-runaway-train-the_b_1275244.html
AP1000's "containment structure could" -- in Ma's words, " shatter like a glass cup"-- because of "flaws in the design of the shield building if impacted by an earthquake or commercial aircraft."

[Michael Mann]

03:39 PM on 04/23/2012

Passively safe, as long as the laws of physics & gravity are not repealed.
http://ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/ap1000_safety.html

[Michael Mann]

02:12 PM on 04/22/2012

Great news! We need to expand the use of clean, safe nuclear energy and wean society off of dirty, dangerous fossil fuels!
http://thingsworsethannuclearpower.blogspot.com/2012/04/shipping-waste-and-pollution.html

[Callme Ish]

10:44 PM on 04/19/2012

How about 200 Fukushimas, yeah that would stink

The endgame of the Keynesian experiment started around 1980

Lots of infrastructure was built around that time. Money started flowing, taxes started increasing.

Lots of facilities work well for around 30 to 40 years.

All that stuff, the nuke plants, the electrical grid itself is reaching the point of being just too old.

Look at the amazing increase in severe power outages.

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2012/04/clunkers-everywhere.html

Nukers tell me how the power grid is "robust" and how that it could easily handle a Carrington event, and that things can and would be disconnected in time.

What a bunch of hogwash. Do you think that a corporation will shut down their grid pre-emptively on a "maybe" No way. Swing for the fence and if they strike out....well then the public pays the cost.

In the case of nukers, that means a good portion of 450 nuke plants will melt down on a massive grid failure. And that will be the end. The Mad Max days won't even last long, probably not even 6 months.

Review the Carrington here

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/p/carrington-event-and-astronomy.html

[Genders]

03:43 PM on 04/20/2012

Incredible, isn't it? A couple of EMP blasts would also cause melt them down.

And solar wind and waste are cheaper, faster to install and forever.

[PoloniumMan]

01:55 PM on 04/21/2012

Nuclear power plants are the most robust of our civilian infrastructure against HEMP attacks. Both from the initial fast pulse and the low frequency components.

[undsoweiter]

04:52 PM on 04/20/2012

Well, that was a load of rubbish, but thanks for playing our game.

[Genders]

04:32 PM on 04/21/2012

That's what you said about the possibility of disastrous meltdowns too.

[idyl]

06:37 PM on 04/19/2012

It seems the only lesson the industry has learned from Fukushima is to push ahead, and not retreat and re-evaluate (as they did with TMI). Unfortunately, it's being done entirely on the backs of the taxpayer and a compliant NRC (bitterly divided over the way forward on nuclear power). At a minimum, it doesn't seem we are even willing to wait for the independent panel to release it's repot on the Fukushima disaster, due out at the end of the summer.

http://icanps.go.jp/eng/

It's a regulatory embarrassment.

[JimHopf]

08:11 PM on 04/19/2012

Nuclear power is the most strictly regulated industry their is, by far, and the results show it. There have been no public deaths, and no measurable health impacts, from 50 years of nuclear power in the US, while US fossil power plants have been causing ~20,000 deaths every single year, along with ~40% of our total CO2 emissions. Due to this stark difference, any "retreat" of nuclear power will result in enormous public health and environmnental costs.

The small modular reactors in question are not nearly as vulnerable (if at all) to the problems that occurred at Fukushima. So, you could consider these efforts a "response", or "re-evaluation". Then there's also the fact that there is no tsunami threat in Missouri....

Just like TMI, NRC will be promulgating new requirements in response to Fukushima, not that most of those would impact these newer, inherently safer reactor designs. It's also true that the industry has been doing nothing, or moving slowly, in response (see below). Imagine if we had that level of responsiveness from the coal industry, given that it's negative impacts are vastly greater.

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/26124?c=disaster_preparedness_emergency_response

[Callme Ish]

10:46 PM on 04/19/2012

"If at all" LOL
Stop lying
There are no small modular reactors, those are just a theory. with and expensive and dangerous learning curve to try to get them to the point of reasonable safety.

But when over 1% of all nuke plants blow up, melt down, or both. Give us a break, learn a new trade, stop killing us.

[Genders]

03:44 PM on 04/20/2012

Cancer.

You forgot the millions of deaths from cancer.

You always do.

I wonder why?

[undsoweiter]

05:17 PM on 04/20/2012

Lessons from Fukushima:
Don't put your backup on the ground floor.
Tsunamis are bad.
Even in the most cataclysmic conditions, the containments work.
Triple meltdown, No fatalities.

[idyl]

05:36 PM on 04/20/2012

They put their fuel tanks for back-up generators on the beach, above ground. Almost as stupid as installing your reactor vessel backwards at San Onofre!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925559,00.html

There were fatalities, 80,000 people were displaced, costs of clean-up have been lowballed at $130 billion, Japanese economy is in ruins, public confidence in Government is at all time low, and some towns are contaminated to a level of 508 mSv/year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/27/us-japan-nuclear-uninhabitable-idUSTRE77Q17U20110827

Want to blow up your economy ... hand the job over to some nuclear engineers!

[Genders]

04:33 PM on 04/21/2012

Cancer. saying it's zero invalidates everything else you say.

[franknbeaners]

02:43 PM on 04/19/2012

Obligatory 'destroying the environment' comment while blindly ignoring the pollution caused by other power generating sources. If it is powered by the wind then it must be green despite the fact that manufacture and maintenance is heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

[Genders]

03:44 PM on 04/20/2012

No, the it's reliant and waste bio fuels.