Duke Energy to build nuclear plant in Ohio – Charlotte Business Journal:
and French nuclear group propose to build a 1,650-megawatt nuclear plant in southern Ohio.
The plant will be part of what officials are calling the Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park. The 3,700-acre site is a former enrichment site for weapons-grade material in Piketon, Ohio. The town is about 65 miles south of Columbus.
“We must modernize and decarbonize our fleet of power plants in Ohio and in the U.S.,” Duke Energy Chief Executive Jim Rogers told a crowd gathered at the site Thursday morning. “Job one for us is to deliver energy that is affordable, reliable and clean, and we cannot meet our responsibilities without new nuclear generation.”
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and U.S. Sen. George Voinovich also spoke at the event. They praised Duke and Areva’s plans, and said the energy park and the nuclear plant would bring jobs to the region.
Officials expect as many as 4,000 workers to be employed in the construction of the plant. And there would be 400 to 700 permanent jobs at the site once the facility is completed, Rogers said.
Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of Areva SA, was also on hand for the announcement. She said her company was excited to be involved in an effort that would turn what had been a weapons site into a center for development and production of clean energy.
The work of applying for an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just begun. No timetable has been disclosed.
But Voinovich (R.-Ohio) noted Areva was already involved in getting approval for construction of a plant in Maryland that would use the same Areva-designed U.S. EPR reactor planned for the Ohio venture.
No cost figures have been released, but experts estimate that plants of a similar design would cost up to $12 billion to build.
The proposed plant would be the third nuclear plant in Ohio and the first built in more than 20 years. It will be Areva’s eighth nuclear project in the United States
operates the site, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. Strickland said USEC, based in Bethesda, Md., is a partner in the alliance that will evaluate the site for a nuclear plant.
, a joint venture involving Constellation Energy of Baltimore and the
, Europe’s largest power company, are also involved.
Duke will manage the nuclear plant project and will be the applicant for the license. The plant will be built in partnership with the other companies involved in the clean-energy park.
Rogers called the Piketon site a perfect location for developing a new nuclear plant.
Duke operates three nuclear plants in the Carolinas, but it has none in the Midwest.
The Charlotte-based company (NYSE:DUK) also plans to build fourth Carolinas plant, the Lee Nuclear Station, in Cherokee County, S.C.
Duke has applied for its NRC license for that facility. It has yet to seek permission from S.C. regulators for it. The plant, using two AP1000 nuclear reactors designed by Westinghouse, is expected to cost more than $11 billion to build, not including financing costs.
