1st step for 4th Salem reactor

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a May 6 open house and public meeting to discuss how the agency will review an early site permit application to be filed next month by PSEG Nuclear, the first step toward licensing a fourth reactor in Salem County.

PSEG - the Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. - said earlier this year that it planned to apply for an early site permit in May. The Salem County site is the nation's second-largest commercial reactor complex after the Palo Verde plant near Phoenix.

"The NRC public meeting is part of the regulatory process before a company submits an early site permit," PSEG spokesman Joe Delmar said. "An early site permit is not a commitment to build a new nuclear plant. If approved, it says the site we have identified for a potential new plant is suitable from a safety, environmental, and emergency planning standpoint."

The permit is valid for as long as 20 years, "so we can make a decision, once we get it, if we want to build right away, or wait and build within a 10- to 20-year time frame," Delmar said.

The location now houses Salem 1, Salem 2, and Hope Creek reactors on Artificial Island near the Delaware River, 40 miles south of Center City.

"The early site permit allows us to continue exploring the possibility of building a new plant," Delmar said. "There is a lot of uncertainty still in regards to the cost, as well as from a licensing standpoint with the NRC. There have not been any new nuclear power plants built in over 25 years."

After the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, many orders for new plants were canceled - including a fourth reactor on Artificial Island. A plant is being built in Tennessee. President Obama recently announced loan guarantees for a proposed nuclear plant in Georgia.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the May 6 meeting in Carneys Point, Salem County, was an informational open house from 5 to 7 p.m. where people could talk informally with agency staff. A public meeting in the theater at Davidow Hall, at Salem Community College, will be held from 7 to 9:30 p.m.

"The purpose is to talk about our review process for this early site permit application," Sheehan said.

"PSEG has been talking for a while about possibly pursuing a new reactor at Salem Hope Creek."

The early site permit application allows PSEG to "pursue site approvals separately from actually submitting an application to construct a reactor," Sheehan said. "They can get through the environmental, security, and emergency preparedness reviews, and then at a later date come in with an application to actually construct a reactor there."

PPL Corp. has applied to build a reactor near the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, near Berwick, Pa. The plant would be known as Bell Bend - named for a bend in the Susquehanna River.

"That's still in the very early stages of review," Sheehan said.