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BAY CITY – The review of South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company’s two new units appears to be on again.
Company officials met with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to discuss revisions to the application for the addition of STP units 3 and 4 in Matagorda County.
The company submitted the application to build the two new units in September, but in January asked the NRC to stop the review of the design-specific section of the application because of issues STP was having deciding which vendor was going to be the final project vendor, said David Knox, communications manager for NRG Energy, a 44 percent owner of STP units 1 and 2.
“We are now in the process of restarting the review of the design-specific section, and once we submit the official revisions in October, we expect the NRC to do their review to make sure it is complete and thorough,” Knox said. “And as they are doing all of this, they are continuing to review the site-specific details.”
Knox said that making sure the correct vendor is chosen for a project like this is vital in determining what technologies are to be used for the design.
STP headed up a due-diligence team to work with Toshiba, a major power systems company in the U.S. and Japan, to determine whether they would be able to build the new STP units to the required standards.
“They did about 30,000 man hours of due-diligence with Toshiba to determine their abilities,” Knox said. “As they did this due-diligence, they determined not only that they are capable of building the units up to the standards we expect, but they are also exceptionally able to built them to the highest standards possible.”
Within about three weeks to a month, STP will submit a 1,000-page due-diligence report of the research completed with Toshiba to the NRC for further review. The NRC will use this detailed report to ensure the the vendor has enough knowledge to build the new units to specifications.
STP units 1 and 2 were brought online in August 1988 and June 1989, and are the sixth and fourth youngest, respectively, of the 103 units licensed to operate nationwide, according to the STP Web site.
STP's two current reactors produce 2,700 megawatts of electricity, enough for about five percent of Texas' electric power. More than one million homes and businesses in South Central Texas are powered by STP units 1 and 2.
When operational, Units 3 and 4 will double STP's output and make it the largest nuclear power plant in the U.S, with more than 2,000 employees, according to the Web site.
John Braden is a reporter/photographer for the Matagorda Advocate. Contact him at 979-244-1330 or jbraden@vicad.com or comment on this story at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.