Units 3 and 4
On August 15, 2006, Southern Nuclear formally applied for an Early Site Permit (ESP) for two additional units. The ESP will determine whether the site is appropriate for additional reactors, and this process is separate from the Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) application process. On March 31, 2008, Southern Nuclear announced that it had submitted an application for a COL, a process which will take at least 3 to 4 years. On April 9, 2008, Georgia Power Company reached a contract agreement for two AP1000 reactors designed by Westinghouse (owned by Toshiba) and the Shaw Group (Baton Rouge, LA). The contract represents the first agreement for new nuclear development in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and received approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) on March 17, 2009. As stated by a Georgia Power spokesperson Carol Boatright: "If the PSC approves, we are going forward with the new units."
On August 26, 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued an Early Site Permit and a Limited Work Authorization. Limited construction at the new reactor sites has begun, with Unit 3 expected to be operational in 2016, followed by Unit 4 in 2017, pending final issuance of the Combined Construction and Operating License by the NRC.
On February 16, 2010, President Obama announced $8.33 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees toward the construction cost. The cost of building the two reactors is expected to be $14 billion.
In February 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the construction license of the two proposed reactors at the Vogtle plant. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko cast the lone dissenting vote on plans to build and operate the two new nuclear power reactors, citing safety concerns stemming from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, and saying "I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima never happened".
One week after Southern received the license to begin major construction on the two new reactors, a dozen environmental and anti-nuclear groups sued to stop the Plant Vogtle expansion project, saying "public safety and environmental problems since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor accident have not been taken into account". On July 11, 2012, the lawsuit was rejected by the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Read more about this topic: Vogtle Electric Generating Plant
Famous quotes containing the word units:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)