Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
A consortium of Midwest utilities consider a new nuclear build in Nebraska.
Utility consortium looks to Nebraska new buildThe Great Plains New Nuclear Consortium will explore the feasibility and development of deploying new nuclear technology within Nebraska to serve the needs of the four utilities in the Southwest Power Pool market footprint.
Four public power utilities - Lincoln Electric System, Nebraska Public Power District, Omaha Public Power District and Grand River Dam Authority - have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to form the consortium, which will be coordinated by a steering committee led by Nebraska Public Power District. It will focus on feasibility studies, site evaluations and technology assessments for between 1,000 and 2,000 MW of new nuclear capacity including small modular reactors (SMRs). All four utilities are members of the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organisation covering 14 states which are part of the USA's Eastern Interconnection grid.
Each utility will fund its own early-stage work. Any future steps, such as investment, permitting or construction, would follow public engagement and each utility's independent board approval process, the consortium said.
Nebraska Public Power District - a publicly owned utility and a political subdivision of the State of Nebraska - already operates the single-unit Cooper, Nebraska's only currently operating nuclear power plant, and is working on a nuclear feasibility siting study funded through the Nebraska Legislature and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development to identify sites that have the potential to host SMRs. The consortium is not connected to that study, but said it will utilise the results during the evaluation and planning process...
Four public power utilities - Lincoln Electric System, Nebraska Public Power District, Omaha Public Power District and Grand River Dam Authority - have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to form the consortium, which will be coordinated by a steering committee led by Nebraska Public Power District. It will focus on feasibility studies, site evaluations and technology assessments for between 1,000 and 2,000 MW of new nuclear capacity including small modular reactors (SMRs). All four utilities are members of the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organisation covering 14 states which are part of the USA's Eastern Interconnection grid.
Each utility will fund its own early-stage work. Any future steps, such as investment, permitting or construction, would follow public engagement and each utility's independent board approval process, the consortium said.
Nebraska Public Power District - a publicly owned utility and a political subdivision of the State of Nebraska - already operates the single-unit Cooper, Nebraska's only currently operating nuclear power plant, and is working on a nuclear feasibility siting study funded through the Nebraska Legislature and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development to identify sites that have the potential to host SMRs. The consortium is not connected to that study, but said it will utilise the results during the evaluation and planning process...
There is a meme that runs around that nuclear energy is "too expensive," the unstated but real corollary being that the destruction of the planetary atmosphere is not "too expensive," since nuclear energy is the only available tool to ameliorate said destruction.
The United States recently added, as an outgrowth of the Obama era Department of Energy policy, two reactors at the Vogtle Georgia plant, units 3 and 4.. Seventy percent of the costs was connected with unit 3, and, based on experience with building that unit, only 30% was connected with Unit four, since Unit 3 suffered from FOAKE (first of a kind engineering) costs. The reactors were API 1000's.
Unfortunately, the experience of building 3 and 4 did not result in additional builds, because of insipid whining about the costs, roughly 30 billion dollars when all was said and done. However, what was not pointed out was that the two Vogtle reactors will likely be operating at the dawn of the 22nd century, nearly half a century after every bit of fossil fuel dependent so called "renewable energy" infrastructure now existing will have become landfill.
A nuclear power plant is a gift to future generations. The real problem with building them is bourgeois selfishness, contempt for future generations that dominates American life and in many cases, life elsewhere. Culturally, we couldn't care less about the future, and it shows.
History will not forgive us, nor should it.