Nuclear Power: Time to Choose

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Utility executives must be persuaded that ordering nuclear plants again can make economic, environmental and practical sense. The first challenge, already addressed in the Administration's recent proposal, will be to streamline the licensing process, which now requires a set of public hearings before a plant ; can be built and another before it can start operating. In the case of New Hampshire's $6 billion Seabrook nuclear power station, the second round of hearings kept the completed plant idle for three years, costing its owner, Public Service Co. of New Hampshire, an extra $1 billion in interest and other expenses before the facility finally opened in 1990. To prevent such costly delays, the White House wants to accelerate licensing by compressing the two sets of hearings into one while still allowing for public comment before a plant starts up.

But that proposal seems sure to set off a furious battle in Congress that will test the depth of George Bush's commitment to nuclear power. "Congress is risk averse," says a House staff member. "The public doesn't like nuclear energy, and it doesn't want the right of a public hearing taken away." A careful reader of the public mood, Bush has so far shown little willingness to put up much of a fight for his program. Even chief of staff John Sununu, a former engineer who pushed hard for Seabrook when he was New Hampshire's Governor, has shown at least as much interest in blocking opponents of nuclear power from key jobs in the Administration as in promoting nuclear energy.

While the White House has dithered, the DOE has invested more than $160 million in recent years to help develop a new generation of advanced reactors with standardized designs. Participants in the program include GE and Westinghouse, which have put up a total of $70 million. Washington wants four designs ready for utilities to choose from by 1995. "The key is getting the first one built," says William Young, an assistant DOE secretary for nuclear energy. That would "let the public know what it can expect."

But the question remains: Who would buy such a plant? Wall Street experts say the most likely customers could be consortiums rather than individual firms. "The next generation of nuclear reactors will be partly owned by manufacturers as well as by utilities," says Barry Abramson of Prudential Securities. "Utilities want to spread the risks around this time." That seems to be happening already. Without much fanfare, for example, Westinghouse and Bechtel, a San Francisco-based engineering firm, have formed a joint venture with the Michigan utility Consumers Power to purchase and operate nuclear plants.

The federally run Tennessee Valley Authority could be another deep-pocketed customer for the first new reactor. TVA chairman Marvin Runyon says he may order a nuclear plant by the end of the decade. TVA also plans to restart one of three nuclear reactors at its Browns Ferry plant, near Athens, Ala., this summer. The facility had a serious fire in the mid-1970s and shut down in 1985 to correct safety problems. Runyon likes atomic energy because it is clean, but he lists four conditions that must be met if nukes are to regain the public's trust: "One-step licensing, standardized designs, a nuclear-waste- disposal program and a bold spirit of confidence."