March 10, 2007

About time - first nuke in 30 years

Hats off to Exelon corporation for getting the first permit to build a new nuclear reactor in the 30 years since TMI. From the Chicago Tribune:
Exelon gets reactor site OK
Exelon Corp. cleared a significant regulatory hurdle Thursday in the potential construction of a second reactor at its nuclear plant in Clinton, Ill., although the company has not committed to ever doing so.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the Clinton location, in central Illinois, as a potential site for a new nuclear reactor. Known as an early site permit, it means the property has no physical barriers, such as an earthquake hazard, to serving as the location of a new nuclear reactor.

Exelon is the first company to win an early site permit under a new approval system intended by the government to quicken the pace of nuclear development.

"The early site permit is not permission to building anything," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. That would require a construction and operating license, which could take several years or longer to obtain.

Burnell said the permit would speed up the process of building a new nuclear reactor, however. Exelon operates a single reactor at the Clinton plant.
Very cool - plenty of fuel, the waste, although radioactive is not impossible to treat and deal with and the environmental impact of mining Uranium ore is a lot less than mining Coal due to the much smaller volumes involved. No greenhouse gasses either... Posted by DaveH at March 10, 2007 8:23 PM | TrackBack
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