Timetable reported for Idaho nuclear power plant

See Postscript below - MidAmerican canceled the project

Possibility of new nuke plant concerns western Treasure Valley residents; timetable for construction announced; Edition Date: 12/23/07 Idaho Statesman

Here's the timetable for development of a new nuclear power plant in Payette, Idaho. A team of engineers, geologists, biologists and other experts is conducting the studies they need to determine that the Payette site is as suitable as they think. Most of those studies will be completed early next year.

* By November 2008 MidAmerican will announce its decision to seek a permit from the NRC.

* The permitting process will take up to four years. The NRC says 42 months, but that's a best case scenario.

* Construction could take another six-to-eight years. This means it will be at least 12 years, 2020, before the Payette plant would be producing electricity.

Where's the due diligence?

Nowhere has anyone explored the possible actions the company might take if it turns out the Idaho site is not suitable. Will the Idaho news media please think about the possibility that the Payette site is perhaps just one of half a dozen sites MidAmerican is looking at? What if it turns out the only reason we know about the Idaho site is because one of the people doing the site analysis was more chatty than cautious in a Payette diner and that's what let the cat out of the bag for this site?

If I were them, and thinking about spending a couple of $billion on a new nuclear power plant, I'd be doing due diligence on more than one site before making a commitment to apply for a COL from the NRC.

One of the issues is that this is a "greenfield" site. There is no infrastructure in Payette for a nuclear power plant. With one exception, every other COL application submitted to the NRC so far this year, and there have been four, are pad sites at existing reactors to take advantage of the site and transportation infrastructure that already exists.

A new plant at a greenfield site will incur as much as $500 million in extra costs based on a review done by NRG for its COL for two new nuclear reactors to be built at the South Texas Plant in Bay City, TX. If I'm an investor in MidAmerican, do I want to spend an additional $500 million for a greenfield site and if so why? Where's the return on investment?

While we're on the subject of due diligence, and the question of return on investment, recall that MidAmerican announced that it is considering the new Mitsubishi nuclear reactor, a design which is not yet approved by the NRC. That's not a deal breaker, but the question needs to be asked about who is paying for the design review? The NRC began the review process for the new Mitsubishi reactor in 2006. The costs of design review are charged back to the reactor manufacturer and can cost upwards of $50-100 million which includes the license application for the first plant.

Are these costs solely with the Japanese industrial giant, or is MidAmerican thinking, as a potential empire builder, that success in Idaho with the new reactor could lead to construction of a fleet of similar reactors across the country or globally? Last July Hiroshi Inoue, vice president of Mitsubishi Heavy's Nuclear Energy Systems Headquarters, said the company plans to launch its new advanced pressurised water reactor model, the US-APWR, with a power generation capacity of 1,700 megawatts, in the key U.S. market in 2012. That's just about the time MidAmerican would be ready to start construction of the Payette plant.

Quote

"We're in a very preliminary due diligence process to look at a potential energy project in Payette County," Bill Fehrman, president and chief nuclear officer for MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Co., told the Idaho Statesman on 12/04/07.

Reference

Additional coverage on this blog, including the anti-nuclear response, here

Postscript

MidAmerican pulled the plug on its Idaho venture shortly after this post was published.

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