By JENNIFER LIBERTO and AMY WIMMER SCHWARB
Published November 6, 2003
The head of Progress Energy Florida never expected a few comments about building a new nuclear plant would turn so many heads.
But with the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters now distant memories, and political leaders looking to expand conventional thinking about energy sources, his remarks stirred interest nationwide.
"I think we'd be interested in a new nuclear plant, though I don't know that we could go it alone," Progress Energy Florida chief executive William Habermeyer told a group of Hernando County business and community leaders Tuesday.
His remarks surprised environmental activists, industry leaders and major media outlets, who bombarded the company with calls Wednesday inquiring about Progress Energy's future in nuclear power.
"We're not actively searching for the right business to partner in building a new nuclear plant," Progress Energy spokesman Aaron Perlut said Wednesday morning. "We would not be opposed to the idea at some point in the future."
The company issued a corporate response late Wednesday afternoon.
"As Florida's energy needs grow, deciding what fuel will power future base-load power plants will be an interesting discussion, and nuclear will be a consideration, just as coal and gas will be," Habermeyer said in the written statement. "However, we have no plans to build a nuclear plant, and we are not seeking partners for a co-owned plant."
During Tuesday's meeting Habermeyer, a Navy veteran and Cold War submarine commander, was a tad more enthusiastic.
Habermeyer spent most of the time allotted for questions talking about how national sentiment has grown "more pronuclear" and how the country is too dependent on natural gas as a fuel source.
"If the stars have ever been better aligned for nuclear power, I don't know," he said at the meeting.
The United States soured on nuclear energy after a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island overheated in 1979, spreading radiation over the area. The most recent nuclear power plant to come online was the Watts Bar One plant near Spring City, Tenn., which started operating in 1996 but received its construction permit in 1973.
Yet industry leaders say national sentiment has begun to swing in favor of nuclear power.
Support for nuclear power generally has strengthened whenever the country struggles to meet energy needs, such as during the rolling California blackouts in 2001 and the August power outages that crippled the Midwest and East Coast.
In a survey made in July, 64 percent of Americans polled for the Nuclear Energy Institute favored using nuclear energy as a way to produce electricity. A similar survey in 1983 reported that 49 percent were in favor of nuclear energy.
The political environment has also warmed to nuclear power. In Congress, drafts of the most recent energy bill include federal tax credits for new construction of power plants.
Over the past several weeks, three utilities submitted preliminary requests to the federal government seeking new nuclear power plants in Illinois, Virginia and Mississippi, said Scott Burnell, spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors civilian use of nuclear energy.
And Progress Energy is applying for a 20-year extension on its federal license to operate the Crystal River nuclear plant, which is set to expire in 2016.
"The fact of the matter is that there is interest in Progress as well as other companies in building new plants," said Thelma Wiggins, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
However, those who remember the original debate about the Crystal River plant are irked that Progress Energy would discuss interest in new nuclear plants, even if actual efforts toward building a plant are years away.
"I'm stunned," said Eric Draper of Florida Audubon. "I'm probably one of the few that remembers the opposition in Crystal River. There were pretty considerable demonstrations and protests at the headquarters of Florida Power in St. Petersburg."
Darden Rice of St. Petersburg, the Sierra Club's national field coordinator for the global warming and energy program, said people would mobilize to fight a nuclear power plant if they had one to fight.
"I don't think people's attitudes have relaxed because we suddenly think it's safer," Rice said. "I think people think it was a big issue in the past. My feeling is that the public kind of thinks it's a no-brainer that nuclear waste is bad."
Holly Binns of the Florida Public Interest Research Group questioned how clean the plants are. Well-functioning nuclear plants still produce radioactive waste, she said.
"This certainly isn't part of a smart, clean energy future for Florida," Binns said.
During the meeting Tuesday at Silverthorn Country Club in Spring Hill, Habermeyer said a new nuclear plant need not be built in a new location but could be built where existing plants are now located. Habermeyer did not specify any location that the Raleigh, N.C., company might be considering for a plant.
Progress Energy currently operates four nuclear plants: the plant in Crystal River, the largest coal and nuclear plant in the state; two plants in North Carolina and one in South Carolina.
