TXU to Order Mitsubishi's APWR

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd is set to receive a $5.2 billion order to build two nuclear reactors for U.S. power plant operator TXU Corp. the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday.
TXU said in August 2006 that it planned to file construction and operating license applications in 2008 to build two to six gigawatts of new nuclear capacity at one to three sites in Texas. The company expects the new reactors to enter service between 2015 and 2020.

This is the first company in the U.S. to announce intentions to build this type and it's the largest reactor (1,700 MW) yet. For a list of other company's new nuclear plant intentions in the U.S. click here.

Comments

Unknown said…

David,
My name is Seth and I'm a college student. I've been doing some research on this deal.
Since the deal was finalized I would guess a lot of information would be open to public by now, but I can't seem to find any through news media. I would like to know:
1.If MNES won the deal from TXU through a bidding process (and possibly the competitors).
2.(If it were a bidding) What was the qualifications/project history that TXU required to enter the bidding?
If you know of any information regarding aforementioned questions, would you please email to skwon09@gmail.com?
Thank you very much for your help in advance!

- Seth

July 12, 2007 at 2:12 PM

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog