The group of cities that originally signed on to buy the energy produced by NuScales Power small reactors has agreed to extend the deadline to drop out of the project by another month after two have withdrawn over cost and waste concerns.
The original deadline to leave the Nuscales’ Carbon Free Power Project was Sept. 30. By now, two of the 35 cities that originally signed up — Logan and Lehi, Utah — have announced official plans to leave the project, while a spokesman for another, Bountiful, Utah, has said there’s a 50-50 chance it will leave too.
Bountiful’s spokesman Allen Johnson told RadWaste Monitor this week the consortium of cities taking part — called the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) — voted to extend the deadline to Oct. 31, and Bountiful won’t announce its final decision until Oct. 27.
The extension allows more time for advocacy groups like the Taxpayers Association and HEAL Utah to try to lobby municipalities into withdrawing from UAMPS. Both groups are against the project, citing concerns over ballooning costs of the plants and the environmental impact of the nuclear waste they will generate.
“The deadline was extended to allow cities more time to hold their city council meetings, public hearings, etc., and also to ensure that the DOE multi-year cost share award is in place before entering the next phase of the project,” said UAMPS spokesman LaVarr Webb.
He said Wells Rural Electric Company will join the project as of Oct. 1, making the number of project participants 34.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved design plans for the small plants in mid-September, marking the official completion of the project’s technical design review process, according to documents submitted to the Federal Register on Tuesday.
Logan and Lehi withdrew from the project, which some say could be the future of clean energy in the United States, due to the growing cost. The bill has risen to around $6 billion from an original estimate of $3 billion after taking the cost of waste disposal and other additional processes into account.
The project will be made up of 12 60-megawatt modules at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. If everything goes as planned, NuScale Power plans to be fully operational by 2030 and would provide clean energy to more than 30 towns and cities in Utah, Idaho and New Mexico.
The Department of Energy has invested over $16 million in the coalition between NuScale and UAMPS so far.
