Georgia to Be Home to First Nuclear Reactors Since Three Mile Island

On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted its first approved licenses for new nuclear reactors built on American soil since before the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The news brings with it the first manifestation of the so-called renaissance of nuclear power in the United States predicted back in 2007.

The two approved reactors are set to be built as an expansion to the existing two-reactor Alvin W. Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia, located near Waynesboro and approximately 26 miles southeast of Augusta. The Vogtle plant offers a lengthy list of safety reassurances on its online fact sheet, citing its ability to withstand earthquakes between magnitude 6 and 7, flying debris up to 360 mph, and its suspected immunity to flooding with the reactors located 220 feet above sea level and the Savannah River basin draining off any potential excess nearby.

Although four commissioners from the NRC eagerly voted to grant the licenses, chairman Gregory Jazcko held back his support. According to a report from World Nuclear News, Jazcko wanted to enforce a condition on the licenses that would require plant owner Southern Company to exercise any new NRC recommendations that may develop as a response to the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster in Japan during the earthquake in 2011. He further stated that he "could not support issuing this license as if Fukushima had not happened."

While Jazcko's condition was not agreed upon by the other commissioners, the incident in Japan is not forgotten. In the same article from WNN, commissioner Kristine Svinicki insisted that Jazcko's proposed condition would not "make any difference to the safety of operating or planned reactors." This same sentiment was expressed in another article from MarketWatch where Thomas Fanning, Southern Company's chairman and chief executive, said, "The events of Fukushima are being taken into account. It's a continuous learning process."

Despite these reassurances, several environmental and anti-nuclear groups are preparing to file a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. MarketWatch reports that these groups, which include organizations such as Nuclear Watch South and Friends of the Earth, issued a joint statement proclaiming "that the NRC is violating federal law by issuing the license without considering the important lessons of the catastrophic Fukushima accident in Japan regarding ways the Vogtle operation should be modified to protect public safety and the environment."

Current plans are to have the Unit 3 reactor in operation by 2016 and Unit 4 coming online in 2017.