PSEG studies new nuclear reactors

PSEG Nuclear is moving into the home stretch of a site permit review for one or more new reactors along the Delaware River, with a draft environmental impact study due this fall and the company working closely with a new-generation plant designer.

Significant hurdles remain, however, ranging from the sheer cost of construction to Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements for updated storm surge studies to environmental group opposition to a 631-acre Army Corps of Engineers land swap that will make property available for new operations on Artificial Island.

PSEG started work on securing land for one or more reactors north of the present Hope Creek and Salem complex in 2008. The company filed an application with the NRC in 2010, shortly before the recession and before Japan's Fukushima earthquake and tsunami nuclear plant disasters knocked the global industry on its heels and muted talk of a "nuclear renaissance."

A public meeting to resolve final NRC questions about potential storm surge threats at the proposed site is planned for Sept. 17. Final action could come late next year, with a separate decision on technologies, design and construction to follow.

"We have not made a decision on when we would submit an application request for the construction/operating license," company spokesman Joe Delmar said, adding that specific reactor models and technologies also remain unsettled.

Statements in NRC records show that the company has "many engineers" working with global nuclear equipment supplier Holtec International on its Small Modular Reactor (SMR)-160 design, very different from the three gigawatt plants now operating on Artificial Island.

Terms of the strategic alliance with Holtec give PSEG an option to acquire an ownership interest in the technology, Delmar said, "which paves the way for PSEG Power to be responsible for the training and operations of the SMR-160 when the new reactor units are built."

Holtec, which also makes the spent fuel containers used by PSEG, is one of a number of companies working on smaller reactors, described as "inherently safe" by their designers because of their reliance on simpler, automated safety systems, deep underground designs, waterless cooling or other features.

Sketches filed with the NRC for Holtec's 160-megawatt proposal show that much of the plant – including the reactor core – would be inside a nearly 200-foot tall tube, with the bottom 105 feet below ground level. A Holtec brochure said that safety systems would be powered by gravity, with refueling required only once in 42 months and spent fuel stored underground on-site for 300 years.

Other reactor approaches also are in the running for Artificial Island, Delmar said. Some are on a scale similar to the more than 1,000 megawatt Hope Creek and Salem Units 1 and 2, but with features that the industry and NRC describe as simpler to manage and safer to operate.

Maya van Rossum, who directs the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, questioned the wisdom of any new reactors north of Hope Creek, an area built up by years of Army Corps of Engineers dredge spoil disposal.

The Corps recently released a draft environmental assessment of the Artificial Island site, which it would deed to PSEG in exchange for 354 acres of riverside land along the Delaware River east of Claymont for future spoils disposal. About 537 of the 631 acres PSEG seeks are coastal wetlands.

"The ramifications of this land swap in terms of how PSEG will utilize the lands they receive are severe," van Rossum said in a request for a public hearing on the land deal, and extended time for public comments.

Van Rossum said that the nuclear plant impact "must be considered" in the environmental assessment of the land swap.

PSEG has said in the past that as many as two new, more conventionally sized reactors, with up to 2,000 megawatts capacity, could be installed at the site. Company officials have not publicly commented on the potential generating capacity if small modular reactors are placed on the site.

Costs for two reactors of the type previously discussed by PSEG were recently estimated at $6.8 billion.

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 463-3344 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com