Nuke plant proposed near Victoria, Texas
Image via WikipediaTwenty years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rewrote its procedure for licensing reactors to cut the time it would take to build new ones. Now an important part of the system is getting its first test, as a Chicago-based nuclear utility clashes with a well-to-do group of Texas ranchers over preapproval of a site about 120 miles southwest of Houston.It does not strike me as a serious problem. Subsidence is generally caused by ground water withdrawal, although it is also possible from oil production. Victoria and the surrounding area does not have the kind of population that makes ground water withdrawal a serious concern.
The conflict involves the first application by a utility for approval of an entirely new site for a reactor without actually scheduling the construction of one.
In this case, Exelon, the utility that has filed the application, has stated that it will not build on the site unless business conditions change. Meanwhile, opponents of the project figure that if they do not object now, they will never have another opportunity, and they say they have found unique problems with the geology of the spot.
The Victoria County project, named for the surrounding county, is 13 miles south of the city of the same name. Exelon says that because of low prices for natural gas, and the lack of a price on carbon dioxide emissions, it does not want to build a reactor there now; instead, it is applying for early site approval, the utility version of a family shopping for a house and getting pre-approved for a mortgage.
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A prominent ranching family, the descendants of D. M. O’Connor, a South Texas pioneer, hired geologists who are raising detailed objections about “growth faults,” which do not lead to earthquakes but do cause subsidence, as the basin that includes the Gulf of Mexico grows.
A report, commissioned by an organization called Texans for a Sound Energy Policy, which was financed by the family, found that one fault had created a dip eight inches deep in a nearby road, according to the geology report, produced by a Colorado firm, John C. Halepaska & Associates. The report quotes from Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidance documents that say, “Preferred sites are those with a minimal likelihood of surface or near-surface deformation.”
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The area could definitely use the jobs that would be created by the construction and operation of the plant.
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