Archive for the ‘South Texas Project’ Category

October 6, 2010

By Tracy Idell Hamilton
San Antonio Express-News

CPS Energy today will announce a solar partnership with SunEdison that will result in three 10-megawatt installations being built in the utility’s service area, the Express-News has learned.

The three separate ground-mounted solar photovoltaic arrays are to in use by 2012, and CPS has agreed to buy all the power they generate for the next 25 years, the utility confirmed. Locations have not been determined.

Sources say CPS will pay 15 cents per kilowatt hour for the energy — less than the utility’s other major solar agreement for 14 megawatts from the Blue Wing Solar Farm in southeast Bexar County. That project, owned by Duke Energy, is in the testing phase and should be fully operational by year’s end.

A CPS spokeswoman would not confirm the price, but CEO Doyle Beneby called the deal a good one for the utility.

"The market for solar energy continues to improve, and this agreement takes advantage of that," he said.

The average cost to customers for all the power CPS produces — from coal, natural gas, nuclear and renewables — is about 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

SunEdison is the country’s largest solar energy services provider, managing more than 108 megawatts of solar power plants in the U.S. and Europe.

It was founded in 2003 by Jigar Shah, who has spoken at forums in San Antonio several times. Shah subsequently sold the company.

As part of its latest solar deal, CPS has asked the company to collaborate on research and development, likely with the newly formed Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute. CPS has committed $50 million to Texas SERI over the next decade for research on issues facing the utility, such as carbon capture and energy storage.

An education center at one of the installations also is planned, along with a community outreach program.

The investment in local facilities and research "will provide a great energy and economic benefit to San Antonio," said Mayor Julián Castro, who sits on the utility’s board and has been a tireless proponent of bringing more clean energy investment to the city.

"It’s innovative, forward-thinking and helps put San Antonio further on the map in the new energy economy," Castro said.

The additional 30 megawatts essentially will replace the 27 megawatts CPS planned to buy from Tessera Solar, which recently was forced to delay its project for lack of funding. The solar thermal plant, which uses mirrors to concentrate the sun’s power, was to be built outside of Marfa.

When CPS signed a 20-year agreement to buy Tessera’s power in June 2009, it was the utility’s first purchase of solar energy, and the first step toward its goal of acquiring 100 megawatts of solar capacity.

That’s part of the utility’s effort to secure 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2020. CPS already has agreements in place for 850 megawatts of wind power, in West Texas and along the coast.

"We’re very excited about the presence of a major solar company and the size of the installation," said Lanny Sinkin, executive director of Solar San Antonio. "Their commitment to an energy center and additional research and development is very encouraging."

Beneby is bullish on CPS’ continued investment in solar energy, which also includes rebates for up to 50 percent of the cost of home solar systems.

"With 300 days of sunshine here each year," he said, "it just makes sense that San Antonio becomes a hub for solar energy in the U.S."

June 28, 2010

By Kate Galbraith
Texas Tribune

Seventeen years ago, Texas turned on its last nuclear reactor, about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth. In another decade, several more reactors could get built here — if events in Washington go the power companies’ way.

Nuclear power now accounts for 14 percent of Texas’s electricity usage (below the national average, 20 percent). The case for adding more reactors rests on a rising appetite for electricity sparked by a growing population and ever-proliferating gadgetry. And proponents point out that nuclear power, unlike coal or natural gas, is virtually free of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with global warming during its operations, although environmentalists strongly dispute the merits of the plants.

The federal government is moving ahead with a program that provides loan guarantees for the plants — a crucial step to placate financiers nervous about the economic risk of building them. Earlier this month, the Department of Energy agreed to a $3.4 billion guarantee for the expansion of a nuclear facility in Georgia, and the Obama administration recently asked Congress for more funds to help out more plants. Two proposed nuclear projects in Texas are high on the list of potential recipients.

"We’re very serious about moving ahead," says Jeff Simmons, who is leading the development efforts to add two new reactors to the Comanche Peak plant in Glen Rose, near Fort Worth. The project is a joint venture between subsidiaries of Luminant, a big Texas power generator, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The companies are hoping to get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2012 — a crucial green light for the plant.

"Before we even get the license, we will be hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of this project," Simmons says.

A second project is proposed for Bay City. Already, that site, called the South Texas Project, has two reactors, which began operating in the late 1980s. NRG Energy and CPS Energy, the San Antonio utility, have applied for a license to add two more reactors as well, although CPS recently whittled down its share of the project in a legal settlement as cost estimates ballooned.

Many hurdles remain before either project can be built, however. No new nuclear plants in the United States have been started in several decades (the Bay City and Glen Rose projects are the only ones in Texas and are among the last plants nationally to be built). Fears of another Three-Mile Island-type accident have hung over the industry, and the economics are daunting. Nuclear plants are extremely expensive to build — each new reactor can cost $6 billion to $8 billion, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. As a result, many plant operators have convinced the government to extend the life of old plants rather than build new ones. (The four existing Texas reactors are new enough so that an extension is not an issue yet.)

Cost concerns have been compounded by the recent economic turmoil. With the credit markets still tight, financing a huge project is difficult. Also, the recession has depressed demand for electricity — which makes it less necessary to build more power plants in the near term. Texas’s electric usage last year was 1.3 percent less than forecast, and a new report from ERCOT, the state grid operator, projects that peak electricity use will grow by 1.72 percent annually between 2010 and 2019, compared with last year’s projection of 2 percent growth during those years. Also, low natural gas prices have pulled down the overall price of electricity, making it harder to justify building an expensive plant.

Economic uncertainties propelled one major nuclear plant operator, Exelon, to pull back on its plans. Last year Exelon changed its license application for a new plant in Victoria County to a less arduous application, for an "early site permit," which covers environmental and safety portions of the applications only.

"Right now we don’t plan to build a plant there. We do want to preserve the option to build there in the future," says Craig Nesbit, the vice president for communications at Exelon Generation.

Companies exploring a fourth possible Texas plant, in the Panhandle, have not yet applied for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, despite statements in 2008 that an application was planned for 2009.

The federal government holds the key to the economics, through loan guarantees. These essentially mean that the government will pick up the tab if the borrower — the plant owner — defaults. Earlier this month Southern Company agreed to a $3.4 billion loan guarantee for a reactor project in Georgia, part of a $8.3 billion loan-guarantee package for the plant announced in February. The total federal pot currently stands at $18.5 billion — enough for one more project but perhaps not more. (There is also a far smaller amount allocated to loan guarantees for renewable energy projects, which are considered risky and in need of federal guarantees because of their newness.)

As a result, there is jostling for a place in the loan-guarantee queue. The South Texas Project is third in line, after the Georgia project and a plant proposed by Constellation Energy. The Comanche Peak project is fifth in line. The Obama administration asked Congress in May to add $9 billion to the $18.5 billion program, which would mean enough for a few more projects after the Georgia one.

Environmentalists think nuclear power is a terrible idea.

"We think expanding the Texas nuclear fleet is a huge mistake because of cost and waste issues primarily — and that there are significantly cheaper alternatives that could provide the power at a fraction of the cost," says Tom "Smitty" Smith, the Texas director of the environmental and consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. Energy-efficiency and renewable energy — such as the wind power that has grown quickly in Texas — would be far more cost-effective, he says.

Smith also maintains that nuclear plants’ "zero-emissions" arguments on greenhouse gases (although potentially crucial in the forthcoming debate about national energy legislation) are a red herring. "There are enormous emissions of greenhouse gases during the mining and enrichment, construction, decommissioning and then the storage for 50,000 years of this waste," he says. (At both existing Texas plants, the waste is stored on-site.)

But in Somervell County, home to the Comanche Peak reactors, there is community support for building more. The county has used homeland security grants to buy a military-style armored truck — to defend itself and its plant if needed.

"We’ve got to have more nuclear power," says County Judge Walter Maynard. "From a selfish standpoint, it’s very viable to our local economy."

May 26,2010

By Harvey Wasserman

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, a shocking vote tomorrow (Thursday, May 27) may rush $9 billion worth of taxpayer guarantees into building three new nuclear power plants—two of them on that already tortured Gulf of Mexico.

Environmental and taxpayer groups (NIRS.org, PSR.org, Taxpayers for Common Sense) are posting alerts and circulating at least one letter asking House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) to stop the handout. The public is being urged to contact Obey and other Representatives on the committee and in the House (202-225-3121). Shrouded in murky haste, the vote is currently scheduled for 5pm.

The bailout may be attached to an emergency appropriations bill meant to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How that “emergency” relates to building new nuclear power plants remains a mystery.

Insider accounts say the bill may provide $9 billion in loan guarantees for two reactors to be built at the site of the South Texas Nuclear Plant, currently home to two aging reactors. Funding may also go to a new reactor proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, where two two-decade-old reactors are also licensed.

The move may be "balanced" with $9 billion earmarked for "green energy" proposals. But safe energy proponents dismiss that move as window dressing.

The frantic attempt to slip the loan guarantees into a military appropriations vote with minimal debate comes at an astonishing time for the energy industry. As with the Deepwater Horizon, which set off the current Gulf catastrophe, there are no reliable technologies capable of controlling a runaway reactor meltdown.

Nuclear proponents assure the public that the possibility of such an event is remote, but the public has been told similar things about deepwater drilling. And as with BP, owner-operators of the proposed new nuclear plants would enjoy strict limitations on their financial liability in case of a major catastrophe.

The South Texas Project has long been fraught with bitter controversy. The city of San Antonio was set to be a major investor, but pulled out amidst a raucous citizen-utility confrontation over soaring construction cost projections. The true nature of those costs continues to be immersed in angry recrimination and uncertainty. By all accounts the financial estimates for building the new reactors have soared by billions of dollars over the past few years and will continue to do so. How the Department of Energy would underwrite a project whose price tag remains a moving target would undoubtedly become the subject of years of litigation.

Just forty miles from the nation’s capital, Calvert Cliffs is also immersed in contention. Baltimore Gas & Electric has filed for license extensions on the two reactors now operating there, whose continued operation depends on turbine trade-outs that may cost around $300 million. The site is notoriously anti-union. The proposed new reactor may come from AREVA, which would make it the first French commercial reactor built on US soil. A version of the design proposed for Calvert Cliffs is currently billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule as it’s being built in Finland.

Both the South Texas and the Calvert Cliffs proposals have been hotly debated for years, with nothing resembling a public consensus in place. Neither has a reliable financial plan, and even the ultimate designs may be up in the air. What would suddenly give these loan guarantees "emergency" standing is a mystery.

The "green" aspects to this emergency funding proposal have also elicited puzzlement. Safe energy advocates point out that billions of dollars allocated for renewables and efficiency still sit unused at the Department of Energy. The allocations in this proposal appear to be spread out into the years to come, with a far looser timetable than the money allocated for the nukes.

Why a military appropriations bill would be used to deliver loan guarantees for new nuclear plants at a time like this will demand some hard answers down the road.

In the meantime, the green power community will be going all out to prevent them from slipping through.

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Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with THE LAST ENERGY WAR.

May 10, 2010

By Heather Menzies
Bay City Tribune

Matagorda County residents showed overwhelming support for the South Texas Project’s expansion during Thursday’s public meetings to discuss the findings in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) draft environmental impact statement (EIS).

Afternoon and evening sessions were held for public comments to be made on the content of the NRC’s findings in the draft EIS.

About 85 people attended the afternoon session, with 34 making public comments – 30 in support of the combined licenses for units 3 and 4 and three who opposed expansion and challenged findings in the EIS and one who was neutral but encouraged citizens to be interveners.

Jessie Muir, NRC environmental project manager, explained NRC’s process of compiling the EIS and shared their preliminary findings.

According to Muir, the NRC quantifies impacts based on three levels – small, moderate and large.

Small means the effect is not detectable, or so minor it will neither destabilize nor noticeably alter any important attribute of the resource; moderate means the effect is sufficient to alter noticeably, but not destabilize, important attributes of the resource; and large means the effect is clearly noticeable and sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the resources.

Muir said the expansion impacts on use and quality for both surface water and groundwater would be small; and impacts for both terrestrial and aquatic species would be small.

The EIS found that radiological impacts would be small in all areas as well.

Radiological doses to the workers, to members of the public through construction and operation, and to wildlife would be small and below regulatory limits and relevant guidelines.

The environmental justice review focused on low-income and minority populations and concluded that this group would not be "unevenly affected" by the expansion.

The socioeconomic review included impacts on taxes, housing, education, traffic and public services.

The EIS found that adverse impacts range from small to moderate while the beneficial impacts range from small to large.

The environmental impacts from the uranium fuel cycle, transportation of fuel and radioactive waste and decommissioning would be small.

NRC officials along with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also studied the cumulative environmental impacts factoring in proposed projects with other past, present and "reasonably foreseeable future actions."

Muir said they considered projects like White Stallion Energy Center, STP Units 1 and 2, and also LCRA-SAWS to name a few.

The cumulative adverse impacts on the environment ranged from small to moderate, while the cumulative tax impacts would be beneficial and range from small to large.

The EIS noted a need for new baseload electric generating capacity in the region and pointed out that no feasible energy alternatives, nor alternative sites or alternative system designs would be environmentally preferable.

"So based on our environmental review, our preliminary recommendation is that the combined licenses for STP units 3 and 4 be issued," said Muir.

When public comments began, Diana Kyle, spokeswoman for U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, was the first to read into record a letter from Paul encouraging NRC to grant the license.

"I am writing in support of the South Texas Project Units 3 and 4 combined license application. This project will provide much needed energy generation capacity in he area and will have a significant positive impact on economic development in Matagorda County, which I represent," Kyle read.

State Representative Randy Weber also read a letter of support from Sen. Glenn Hegar before speaking on his own behalf in support of units 3 and 4.

Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald, Bay City Mayor Richard Knapik, and former state representative Mike O’Day were other local officials who hailed the benefits of STP’s past record on safety and corporate citizenry.

Each also mentioned the need for the economic boost through the construction phase and the addition of permanent jobs.

Owen Bludau and D.C. Dunham, local economic and community development officials, along with countless local business and real estate owners also spoke of the benefits two new reactors would bring to the community including a boost in sales tax revenues, construction of desired amenities and more jobs.

Tom "Smitty" Smith, of Public Citizen, was the first to speak in opposition of the expansion.

"I don’t think NRC has done an adequate job of analyzing the need for the plant," said Smith.

"And if the plant is not needed then we as tax payers and you as residents of Matagorda County may end up with a plant that is never completed and may end up being and economic albatross because of the federal loan guarantees and dreams unfulfilled."

Karen Hadden, of the SEED Coalition, was the next to detail her concerns with the EIS.

"The EIS does not have adequate scientific analysis on many fronts and it paints a glossy picture while minimizing risks," said Hadden.

"We have concerns with safety, security, radiation risks for the general population and for workers, radioactive waste problems that still have no solution, and the consumption of vast quantities of water."

Susan Dancer, local wildlife rehabilitator, was the third and only local commenter to express concern with STP’s expansion.

Dancer noted that, "underpaid inexperienced staff kill protected species, relocated infectious diseased specimens and kill off honey bee swarms."

She said the construction of units 3 and 4 could, in the long term, contribute to high unemployment rates when construction workers come to town for temporary jobs and then can’t find permanent work.

Dancer also criticized STP for not having enough women and minorities holding upper management positions.

Ed Halpin, STP’s president and chief executive officer; and Mark McBurnett, STP’s vice president of regulatory affairs, spoke of STP’s mission to improved lives through excellence in energy development and expressed their gratitude for community support.

Written public comments on the EIS can be made until June 9 and can be submitted online at
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/form.html.

A copy of the draft EIS can be viewed at
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1937.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 30, 2010

CONTACT:
Andree Duggan, Media Director, 865.235.1448

Atlanta, Ga. – Today, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy won its lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court that aimed to protect Georgians from unfair utility costs in connection with the proposed construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia. The Court found that the Georgia Public Service Commission acted illegally in violation of Georgia state law. The Commission’s approval last year during the certification process for the proposed new Vogtle reactors is now in jeopardy.

"We applaud the Judge’s decision and continue to find it incredible that the Georgia Public Service Commission would put $14 billion of ratepayer money at risk on this project without properly documenting the factual basis behind this high risk decision," said Stephen Smith, executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "This ruling spotlights the ongoing incestuous relationship between the Commission and Georgia Power and highlights the regulatory breakdown and blatant lack of consumer protection."

At today’s hearing, Judge Wendy Shoob heard Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s (SACE) allegation that the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) erred as a matter of law by failing to make findings of fact and conclusions of law as required. Specifically, the group alleged that the PSC did not provide the required written justifications for its findings that would "afford an intelligent review" by the courts. The PSC instead relied on conclusory statements void of any reasoning. The Court ruled in favor of SACE and found that the PSC acted illegally in violation of Georgia state law by failing to make all appropriate findings and to support those findings with a concise and explicit statement of the facts.

"Among many other issues, the PSC needed to explain why they thought this was a prudent technology when this troubled reactor design, Westinghouse’s AP1000, has never even been built anywhere in the world before," commented Robert Smiles, co-counsel for SACE. "And the Court found that the PSC didn’t properly explain."

"Like the devastating oil disaster unfolding in the Gulf, decision makers that support questionable practices must be scrutinized in order for the public to be properly protected," said Michael Carvalho, co-counsel for SACE. "Fortunately, with the Court’s decision that happened today here in Georgia."

Today’s ruling also raises further concerns over the Obama Administration’s controversial decision in February to award an $8.3 billion taxpayer-financed conditional loan guarantee for Southern Company’s proposed Vogtle project, the first to be offered one in the country. The utility has 90 days to accept and recently requested a 30-day extension on making a decision.

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Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible energy choices that create global warming solutions and ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. For more information, go to: www.cleanenergy.org