New Nuclear Plants: Promise or Problems?

Sept. 9 -- Pebble-bed reactors have been touted as the future of nuclear power. They may stay that way for a long time.

Until a few months ago, the new type of reactor, being developed by a South Africa-based consortium, was heralded as the likely prototype for next-generation nuclear power plants: smaller, cheaper and safer than existing plants being used in the United States.

The pebble-bed plants, designed by the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) group, even played a key role in the Bush administration's much-publicized energy plan, which in 2001 advocated a revival of nuclear power.

"PBMR will be able to bring the technology to the United States and other countries and build safe and economical operating nuclear power plants," said the group's chief executive, David Nicholls, earlier this year.

Exelon: Reactor Plan 'Too Speculative'

That scenario looks less likely now. This spring, Exelon Corp., the biggest operator of nuclear plants in the United States, abruptly pulled out of the consortium. Exelon Chairman and CEO John Rowe said the status of the pebble-bed design was "too speculative" for the company to maintain its investment. Exelon had owned a 12.5 percent interest in the PMBR project.

The PMBR group put a positive spin on Exelon's decision. The group is still building its prototype plant in Koeberg, South Africa, and notes that Exelon will work with the consortium as the project's feasibility study is completed.

Even after Exelon's defection, Nicholls told an industry forum in April that pebble-bed reactors "could be built in the U.S. in five or six years from now."

But others think such forecasts are far too optimistic.

"Exelon's decision to pull out of the project says a lot," claims Christopher Sherry, research director of the Safe Energy Communication Council, an industry watchdog group in Washington. "The writing is on the wall."

And officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say the prospective timetable for approving a new form of nuclear plant is such that even if the consortium rolled out a prototype within a couple years and found new U.S. backers, it could be a decade before any plants came on line.