Progress Energy, not long ago considered to be in the forefront of the nation's nuclear renaissance, continues delaying its timeline on nuclear energy development. Some projects are nearly a decade behind schedule, prompting nuclear critics say that despite hundreds of millions of dollars of up-front investment these power plants are not likely to get built.

The Raleigh-based electric utility said today it will delay building its planned Levy nuclear plant in Florida by another three years. The announcement sets back the twin reactor project to a 2024-26 time frame from the original planned dates of 2016 and 2018 for the reactors to come online and start generating electricity.

Progress expects to spend nearly $1 billion on the Florida nuclear project by the end of this year, passing on the investment to Florida customers in their monthly bills.

Delays have also stymied the company's nuclear ambitions in North Carolina. Progress had originally planned to add two reactors at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County by 2020-21. But now those proposed reactors are not in the company's 15-year plan, which means they would not be added until 2027 at the earliest, and possibly much later.



Every U.S. nuclear plant this year will add an extra layer of emergency equipment to deal with unforeseen natural disasters, Progress Energy Chief Nuclear Officer Jim Scarola said this morning to mark the upcoming anniversary of the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Scarola is the special liaison for the U.S. nuclear industry's Fukushima response, set up to improve U.S. nuclear plant safety after a 50-foot tsunami disabled coastal reactors in Japan and washed away diesel generators and other emergency equipment, and claimed 19,000 lives from drowning.

"One of the things we set out to do is not to take the stance that it can't happen here," Scarola said of the nation's nuclear leaders. "What we're really concerned about is being able to provide water and energy" to keep safety equipment running during a catastrophic event that causes high death rates and wipes out roads and other infrastructure. 

Nuclear safety officials have concluded that a fluke mishap last year at Progress Energy's Brunswick nuclear plant near Wilmington was caused by the lack of worker qualification for more than a decade.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued its preliminary findings yesterday, but the federal safety agency is continuing its investigation to determine the safety significance of the incident.

The unusual mishap that shut down the Brunswick Unit 2 reactor last November may be the only such incident in U.S. nuclear history.
 

Progress Energy agreed to a $288 million refund for its Florida customers as part of a rate settlement announced Friday with that state's regulators.

The refund reflects the extra costs Progress incurred to generate or buy electricity to replace the output of the disabled Crystal River nuclear reactor, which has been shut down for more than two years because of damage caused during maintenance.

Raleigh-based Progress will record pretax costs of $288 million for the fourth quarter, which is expected to trim 59 cents from that quarter's earnings, Bloomberg News reported. Progress will announce more details when it issues earnings on Feb. 16.

The Florida rate refund will largely offset a rate increase planned for Florida customers, bringing down the increase to about 4 percent, or nearly $5 a month for a typical household.

The Florida rate case has no effect on customers in the Carolinas, but the $288 million write-down will affect all investors.

Residents and visitors within 10 miles of the Shearon Harris nuclear plant will be treated tomorrow to a full blast of the plant's emergency sirens.

Progress Energy will conduct an annual full-volume test of all 83 sirens between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. The annual test will sound very much like a real emergency, except that the sirens will wail only 3 minutes at a time.

All U.S. nuclear plants are required to have emergency warning systems within a 10-mile emergency planning zone. Shearon Harris conducts four tests a year for about 5 seconds and one test for 3 minutes.

The sirens used by Raleigh-based Progress Energy, which operates the plant, sound like air raid warnings. At 100 feet, they generate 127 decibels, comparable to a human scream or a marching band.

The performance problems that have hobbled Progress Energy's H.B. Robinson nuclear plant will cost the Raleigh utility $24 million.

The Raleigh-based electric utility agreed not to make North Carolina customers pay $24 million in costs associated with the outages, fires and other mishaps that caused the plant to be shut down almost six months of 2010.

On Thursday Progress and the Public Staff, the state's consumer advocate, announced an agreement that will require Progress to eat those costs.

The Public Staff said that the costs associated with the outages were caused by substandard performance. As a result of the forced shutdowns at the Robinson plant, Progress had to spend extra to generate electricity at less efficient power plants and to buy power from other utilities.

Two N.C. universities were awarded $850,000 in federal grants as part of a $39 million grant program for developing and advancing nuclear energy.

The grants, awarded today for 51 projects at 31 universities, are part of the Obama administration's goal of promoting clean energy sectors.

UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University received a pair of grants under the heading of "Transformative Research."

UNC received $400,000 to develop technologies to enhance economic extraction of uranium from deep sea reserves.

N.C. State netted $455,629 to develop, model and test neutron detectors based on nanotubes, increasing the accuracy and efficiency of detecting neutrons during nuclear fuel manufacturing and waste processing.

N.C. State University said this afternoon it shut down its research reactor after a leak was discovered at the nuclear facility.

The small nuclear reactor is leaking about 10 gallons an hour and poses no public health risk, the university said.

N.C. State said it is not required to report leaks under 350 gallons per hour, but it chose to do so. The public notice comes five days after the leak was discovered on Saturday.

"The leak is the size of a pinhead," said N.C. State spokeswoman Caroline Barnhill.

Progress Energy said today it will it attempt to salvage its damaged Crystal River Nuclear Plant in Florida and have the facility back in operation in 2014.

Progress officials made the decision to rebuild the Crystal River plant after a lengthy engineering review that included, as one of the company's options, closing the 34-year-old plant permanently.

If the Crystal River plant is returned back to operation on schedule, it will have been out of commission for about five years, becoming one of the longest unplanned shutdowns in U.S. nuclear history.

The planned repairs will cost Progress between $900 million and $1.3 billion, a cost the company says is justifiable because nuclear power saves about $300 million in annual fuel costs over other alternatives in Florida.
 

In a periodic ritual familiar to residents who live near a nuclear power plant, Progress Energy will sound the emergency warning sirens for the Shearon Harris plant at full blast tomorrow morning.

The Raleigh-based power company will conduct a full-volume test for about 5 seconds between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. The Shearon Harris nuclear plant has 83 warning sirens within 10 miles of the power plant.

The nuclear siren, which resembles an air-raid warning, is not likely to be mistaken for the afternoon bell at the local schoolhouse.

Progress is required to have a notification system in place in the event of an accident that results in a radioactive release. In past years, the sirens have failed the test, but since then the utility has replaced them at a cost of $2.5 million.