A Bright
Future
By Marvin Fertel, Nuclear Energy
Institute.
Marvin Fertel
Marv Fertel is president and chief
executive officer of the Nuclear Energy
Institute (NEI).
Mr. Fertel has
over 40 years of
experience working
with the electric
utility industry on
issues related to
designing, siting,
licensing and
managing both
fossil and nuclear
plants.
He has worked
in executive
positions with
such organizations
as Ebasco,
Management
Analysis Company
and Tenera. In
November 1990,
he joined the U.S. Council for Energy
Awareness as vice president of Technical
Programs. With the formation of NEI in
1994, he became NEI’s vice president
of Nuclear Economics and Fuel
Supply. Mr. Fertel was named senior
vice president and chief nuclear officer
in 2003 and in 2009 he was named
President and Chief Executive Officer of
NEI.
An interview by Newal Agnihotri, Editor
of Nuclear Plant Journal at the Nuclear
Energy Assembly in Washington, D.C. on
May 15, 2013.
1.
Has Georgia Power received the
financing under the “Loan Guarantee
Program” from the Department of
Energy?
Georgia Power is still in negotiations
and I think they expect that they are going
to get it, but there aren’t acceptable terms
yet.
It’s not affecting the construction at
all. The reason they want it is that it still
reduces the cost of the capital, and so it
saves their customers money.
If they can get the financing and
save customers money, they will do that,
but the Vogtle project is going ahead.
They have had no trouble financing and
SCANA also has no trouble financing the
Summer 2 and 3 project.
2.
What is the
current status of
COLA reviews by
U.S. NRC and which
utilities are aggres-
sively pursuing their
applications?
There are 10
nuclear plants in
the review process.
The companies will
decide the timing
on these projects as
electricity demand
picks up and based
on what happens
with natural gas
prices. They want
to have the option
of going forward
at some point with these nuclear plants.
Dominion is very serious about looking at
what they can do with North Anna 3. But
the company is going to wait until they
get their COLA approved, and they are
going to see where the electricity market
is at that time. That is what Duke Energy
is going to do. That is what FPL/NextEra
and others are going to do.
I believe that when these companies
filed their license applications, many
people looked at that and were saying,
“We’re going to build 25 plants real
fast.” That was never the case. They
were going to go with a more staggered,
reasonable rate. Plus, electricity demand
growth projections were much higher
when everybody filed.
I believe that both on the industry
side and on the NRC side, licensing has
been a learning experience and we are still
learning as we proceed with construction.
Clearly there is tremendous benefit to the
modular construction.
The Vogtle project is about 40%
complete; SCANA is almost the same.
I think that in Vogtle’s case, they
have slipped their schedule a little bit
somewhat because the license was issued
later so safety-related concrete could not
be poured until later. Some of it was an
adjustment on just when you got your
license. Some of it has been learning
on a first-of-a-kind process. One of the
learnings we have realized on Part 52 is
that the NRC is taking a very rigid view
of this situation: “We issued you a design
specification. You gave us drawings at
that time. You should be verbatim with
the drawings.” The reality is those were
not construction drawings and there are
things that change when you get into
construction. There is learning still going
on, but in general both projects are really
making very good progress and while
providing lessons learned for the next
projects.
3.
How well did the Congress
appropriate the budget for the nuclear
energy related US activities?
As you know, it is a really tough time
with the sequester andwithbudget deficits.
Congress is still working to finalize the
proposed budget. It has not approved a
budget yet as far as appropriations. We
are looking for increased funding in the
small modular reactor program than what
was included in the President’s proposal.
We would like to see more money to
support DOE’s nuclear energy programs,
particularly the university programs. The
NRC got basically what it asked for from
the President and they will probably get a
similar amount from Congress, so I think
their budget is probably all right. Again,
we would like to make sure that they keep
funding the university programs.
The government often talks about
the importance of STEM programs, but
then they cut funding for these programs,
which does not make a lot of sense for the
future of our country.
22
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2013
