GE Energy Seeks NRC Approval for ESBWR

The ESBWR is an evolutionary, Generation III+ design for a 1,500-megawatt reactor. Its designation as an "III+" results from "its design simplicity and passive safety features," GE Energy said in a statement. "It depends on fewer 'active' mechanical systems, with associated pumps and valves, and instead relies on more reliable 'passive' systems that utilize natural forces, including natural circulation and gravity." According to GE Energy, the ESBWR design also occupies a smaller footprint, reducing its construction schedule and costs.

The ESBWR evolved from GE's 1,350-megawatt, Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design that the NRC certified in 1997. That reactor design has more than 18 reactor years of operating experience from power plants completed in Japan during the 1990s, according to the NEI.

GE Energy expects to receive final design approval in late 2006 with design certification expected to follow quickly thereafter.

In a separate announcement, GE Energy said the U.S. utility industry announced plans to prepare license applications to build a new generation of nuclear reactors at three sites in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, with two projects featuring the ESBWR advanced reactor design.

On Sept. 22, utility consortium NuStart Energy Development LLC announced it would develop a federal construction and operating license (COL) application at a site adjacent to member utility Entergy's Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, Miss. GE's ESBWR is NuStart's preferred reactor technology for this project.

Entergy said it also will simultaneously develop a COL application to potentially build and operate a second ESBWR, this one adjacent to the utility's River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville, La.

The COLs could be among the first such license requests in three decades, according to GE Energy. Utilities must obtain a COL from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to have the option of building a new reactor.

According to GE Energy, Entergy is on track to receive an early site permit from the NRC by early 2007, the first under the federal agency's new licensing process.

Grand Gulf is one of two sites that NuStart announced would potentially host new advanced reactors. NuStart also selected the Tennessee Valley Authority's unfinished Bellefonte plant in Scottsboro, Ala. for a potential Westinghouse AP1000 reactor.

NuStart will prepare separate COL applications on behalf of Entergy and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The industry group plans to submit the COLs to the NRC for review in late 2007 and early 2008.

After a two- to three-year review process, the NRC could issue the two COLs in 2010, said GE Energy. At that time, any NuStart member company, or alliance of companies, could take over one or both of NuStart's COLs and proceed with construction at the site identified in the given license.

If Entergy decides to proceed with building an ESBWR at Grand Gulf, construction is expected to take up to four years, with commercial operation beginning as soon as 2015, according to GE Energy.

In late 2007 or early 2008, Entergy will decide whether to submit its COL applications for Grand Gulf and River Bend to the NRC.

Sources: Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), GE Energy.