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Progress Energy Gets OK For Nuclear Plants

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By BRENT KALLESTAD Associated Press Writer

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 16, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - (AP) Central Florida's largest power provider, Progress Energy, won approval Tuesday from a state regulatory agency to build two new nuclear power plants.

It was the second time in four months the Public Service Commission has approved nuclear expansion in Florida.

The PSC approved Progress Energy's request for new reactors in Levy County near the Gulf of Mexico, about 10 miles north of Crystal River and eight miles inland from the gulf.

"They're encouraging nuclear as part of Florida's energy future which we think is a good thing," Progress spokesman Vincent Dolan said. "Nuclear will provide a stable energy source for the future."

Progress must still get approval from environmental regulators and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Florida's largest electric utility, Florida Power & Light, was given the OK in March to go ahead with plans for two new nuclear generators at its Turkey Point facility in South Florida.

Progress serves about 1.7 million customers in Florida, mostly in the Tampa Bay area, the Orlando suburbs and the Big Bend region stretching along the Gulf of Mexico.

The new plants will provide energy for another 1.3 million average residential homes using 1,200 kilowatt hours monthly and meet Progress' energy needs through 2023, the PSC said.

Progress will begin collecting roughly $7.50 a month per 1,000 kilowatt hours from its existing customer base in January 2009 to begin recovering its costs for building the new units, Dolan said.

"It's a very bad idea," said Jim Walker, a citizen protesting the PSC's decision Tuesday. "They're expensive. They're unreliable. They produce deadly toxic waste and they do produce greenhouse gas emissions contrary to what the industry is saying now."

The company projects that construction and associated costs will be about $17 billion before the new plants go online in 2016 and 2017 respectively. They will be the first new nuclear generating plants built in Florida since 1983.

Associated Press newsman John Manson-Hing contributed to this report.

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