Gaffney, S.C. – More than a quarter-century after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and two decades after Chernobyl in Ukraine, America’s utilities stand at the early edge of what promises to be the first large-scale wave of nuclear-plant construction since the 1980s.
And energy companies are finding – especially in small, struggling Southeastern towns, like Gaffney, where most of the plants are planned – that memories of those tragedies have faded and that local governments and residents, eager for jobs and tax revenues to replace vanished industries, are embracing them with enthusiasm.
“I can’t remember hearing a single negative comment from any local resident,” said Cody Sossamon, publisher of The Gaffney Ledger.
Driven partly by federal Department of Energy projections that demand for electrical power will increase 50 percent by 2025, and by recent federal legislation offering a more streamlined application process and financial incentives for new nuclear facilities, many utilities are eager to get back into the atomic business.
“We initially were looking at 14 communities in the Southeast, and then we narrowed that down to four,” said Henry Barron, chief nuclear officer for Duke Power, which announced last month it would apply to build its first new nuclear plant in three decades just outside Gaffney. “I found no single individual who had any concerns about the plant. The few who did have concerns were worried about increased traffic on the roads during construction.”
In a March report, Fitch Ratings, a global financial-research company, declared: “It is no longer a matter of debate whether there will be new nuclear plants in the industry’s future. Now, the discussion has shifted to predictions of how many, where and when.”
How many remains to be seen. Nine utilities have said they will apply to build as many as 19 new nuclear units, but that does not mean all of them will be built.
As to where, the list includes every state south of Maryland that touches either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, except Texas, and one facility is being considered in central Illinois.
And the sites tend to be in rural counties whose hard-pressed small towns clutch at the chance for fresh jobs and taxes.