Dead Nuclear Plants Walking?

Is the expansion of nuclear energy stopped in its tracks in light of Constellation Energy’s withdrawing from the loan guarantee process?

Not so fast. Brain Wheeler at Power-Gen checks in with several companies to see what’s happening. Here’s NRG:

Although many may see the Calvert Cliffs 3 and the South Texas Project (STP) as very similar, [NRG spokesman David] Knox said there are in fact more differences than similarities in the two. He said that by selecting a reactor that has already been built … [in Japan], it decreases the amount of risk when building a nuclear plant. NRG expects to receive a license from NRC in 2012 and said that both planned units at STP would cost roughly $10 billion, total.

What Knox is getting at is that Constellation and NRG’s projects are different enough to result in a different, better OMB [Office of Management and Budget ] score for STP. This may or may not prove to be true – the major argument to be made here is that OMB uses a formula for calculating default risk that is extremely unrealistic – but the desire to move forward remains intact.

And here’s SCANA, with a glance at the Southern Co.:

Like the Southern Co.-led consortium [which received a loan guarantee commitment for its Plant Vogtle project in Georgia], the V.C. Summer expansion is planned in a regulated market. While SCANA is still in the loan application process, the company said a loan guarantee is not absolutely necessary for its new nuclear project. Upon notification from DOE, SCANA said it “will determine if the terms are in the best interest of our customers and our company.”

These are important messages, because you really don’t want to see a narrative like this (from Greenpeace) take hold:

Nuclear power is bad for business, it seems. Renewables on the other hand? After announcing this week that it was investing in ‘in an underwater transmission network that can harvest electricity from wind farms off the Mid-Atlantic coast’ and power ‘nearly two million homes across Virginia, New York and New Jersey’, Google’s share price rose.

You may be sure that stock rises in EDF or falls in Google will not be reported by Greenpeace, as that would demolish their fragile – and silly - edifice. (That transmission network is pretty neat, though, worth more attention.)

Don’t worry! That’s Boris Karloff walking the last mile in Black Friday (1940). He’s sure to come back (alive, dead or undead, makes no difference) and start bumping off the judge, his lawyers, the jury, innocent bystanders and puppies. He’s so misunderstood!