Callaway II modeled from French nuclear plant design

Reprinted with permission from the St. Louis Beacon
http://www.stlbeacon.org

If AmerenUE builds the Callaway II nuclear power plant near Fulton, and it begins operating in a trouble-free way in 10 years or so, the utility and its customers can say “merci beaucoup” to France.
While the United States has had a virtual moratorium on new nuclear power plants for three decades, the French government, adapting and improving on American designs, has pushed ahead with a third-generation reactor known an EPR (European Pressurized water Reactor or Evolutionary Power Reactor).
“The French nurtured the technology and the business and made refinements,” said Ray Ganthner, senior vice president of AREVA, the French-owned company whose design AmerenUE says it plans to use. “The French kept the flame (of nuclear technology) alive.”
AREVA is the French state-owned global energy firm that designed the planned Callaway II reactor and has built or is building 100 nuclear power plants around the world. It has two offices in the United States.

In addition to the Callaway II unit, AREVA is the designer of four other planned 1,600-megawatt units in Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Idaho.
Although the United States did little to advance the use of new nuclear technology after the partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, France pushed ahead with its drive for more independence from imported fossil fuels to generate electricity.
Today France derives about 87 percent of its electricity from 59 nuclear power plants. It is the most nuclear-dependent country in the world, exporting nearly 20 percent of its electricity to the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
France is said to have some of the continent’s cheapest electricity, although with the heavy involvement of the state, determining the precise cost per kilowatt hour can be a challenge.
France has taken a different approach to nuclear power than the United States in recent years. Although there are 104 nuclear power plants in the United States, there is no consistent design.
Nuclear-energy advocates like Professor Barclay Jones of the University of Illinois say that — leaving aside the issue of what to do with spent nuclear fuel, which they contend can be solved by reprocessing or by central storage at a site like Yucca Mountain in Nevada — reactors comprise a key part of moving toward a more benign and independent energy profile.
“We know how to operate them safely,” said Jones, a professor of nuclear engineering . “We have seen tremendous improvements since Three Mile Island.”
Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 was the site of a partial reactor meltdown over several days in late March and early April in 1979 that created widespread fear and hostility to nuclear power in the United States and elsewhere.
Jones and other nuclear-power advocates argue that if the United States does not welcome the new generation of reactors, then Europe, China, India and others will benefit from continuous advances in nuclear technology. They see re-introducing nuclear power as part of building the new economic base for a greener American energy inventory.
“Public opinion has been kind of schizophrenic,” said William Miller, professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “Nuclear power is not unsafe where it is.”

Callaway Units
AmerenUE has filed a combined Construction and Operating License Application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to preserve the option to build a second power generating unit at its Callaway Nuclear Power Plant.

AmerenUE commissioned an independent analysis of economic impacts resulting from
this project. Here are the highlights:

Project Details:
•Average annual construction jobs: 2,960 (3,950 at peak construction)
•Estimated annual average expenditures during 10-year construction: $504.3 Million (‘07 con-
stant dollars)

Estimated Annual Impact:
•Average annual Missouri value – added economic output $1,240.5 million (1.2 billion)
•Average annual household earnings for Missourians: $516.9 million
•Average annual jobs resulting from economic stimulus: 11,780 jobs