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Nuclear plant celebrates 25th year
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer CRYSTAL RIVER -- As workers ate barbecue and thick slices of cake celebrating the nuclear plant's 25th anniversary, Florida Power executives on Wednesday said they intend to seek a 20-year license renewal. "I think the future is bright for Crystal River," chief nuclear official C.S. "Scotty" Hinnant told several hundred employees gathered under a huge white tent. Hinnant pledged the "tools and training" to make the plant an industry leader and said there are plans to replace steam generators that have helped produce 115-billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the past quarter century. To put that figure in perspective, consider Crystal River. The city uses 76-million kilowatt hours each year, so the plant made enough electricity to keep lights running for 1,500 years at current levels, according to spokesman Mac Harris. The steam generators would be replaced in 2009, at a cost of at least $150-million. That would enable the plant to run well past 2016, when the current license expires. "We're in the business for a long time," Hinnant said. Florida Power, a subsidiary of Progress Energy, intends to file for license renewal in 2005, said site vice president Dale Young. The company has already informally notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its intent. A few years ago, the crowd assembled under the tent would have been much larger. There are at least 200 fewer employees at the plant today than in summer 1998, when there were more than 800. The larger staff was due in part to a regulatory shutdown from late 1996 to early 1998 but cuts also came under the merger of Florida Power and Carolina Power & Light. "We will continue to look at more efficient ways to do business," Young said. But the major cuts seem to have passed, he added. Several employees were honored Wednesday for their service, including Doug Humphrey, who joined Florida Power in 1969, coming to Crystal River in October 1974. "I'll stay as long as they keep me," said Humphrey, 55. "This job is challenging and rewarding."
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