Gulf Coast Nuclear Power Stations Back Online after Katrina - Expansion Still in the Works

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Hurricane Katrina caused major damage to many structures in its path, including the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, but luckily no significant damage to nuclear power plants on the Gulf Coast. The River Bend Nuclear Station in Saint Francisville, the Waterford Three Nuclear Station in Hahnville, Louisiana, and the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station in Port Gibson, Mississippi were free of damage according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Entergy Nuclear Generation Company (Jackson, Mississippi), a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) (New Orleans, Louisiana). Entergy operates all three sites and is 90% owner of Grand Gulf Nuclear and 100% owner of both the River Bend Nuclear Station and the Waterford Three station.

Waterford Three returned to service last week. The plant had been shut down on August 28 in preparation for the hurricane. The staff at the plant has fully satisfied the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements for a safe restart.

Conventional power plants did no fare as well and several of Entergy’s (natural gas and or oil-fired) thermal power units in the New Orleans area had damage and expect seven of the local seventeen units to require additional work before they can be brought back on-line.

Grand Gulf and River Bend both have General Electric (GE) Nuclear Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) that provide the steam to drive the turbine/generator sets. Grand Gulf has a Kraftwork Union 1373-megawatt (MW) unit and River Bend has a GE 1036 MW unit. Waterford Three uses an Alstom/Combustion Engineering Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) that drives a Siemens Westinghouse 1199 MW turbine/generator.

Studies are underway for the additions of 1,100 MW units at both the River Bend and Grand Gulf sites. Entergy, with a consortium of other utilities called Nu-Start Development LLC, is working with the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to license and possibly start construction in 2010, with full operations scheduled for 2014 or 2015. For details see related June 30, 2005 new article - NuStart Energy Studies Sites for New Nuclear Generation Plants. The two types of reactors currently being studied are the Westinghouse PWR AP-1000 and General Electric’s Electronic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR).

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