Exelon Corp., the largest U.S. owner of nuclear power plants, wants government assurance of a disposal site for spent fuel before it will proceed with the reactor it has proposed in Texas, Chief Executive John Rowe said Friday.

"The government may have fooled me on 17 reactors that I currently run, but I'm the one who's being foolish if I build a new plant without knowing what they're going to do with the spent fuel," Rowe said in an interview in Chicago.

Rowe, 61, said his preference would be for the federal government to step up and establish a permanent fuel depository, something it's been unable to do. However, he would not rule out the state of Texas creating its own site.

Proposals to build new nuclear plants, including in the Carolinas, are gaining momentum as prices rise for coal-fired and natural-gas plants along with global-warming concerns. About 32 announcements have been made for new nuclear power plant licenses. No company has sought to build a new reactor in about 30 years.

Exelon in September said it would seek regulatory approval for a nuclear-fueled plant in Texas, the largest power-consuming state.

Lack of a permanent repository has forced Exelon and other nuclear-plant operators to store spent fuel at their plants, a strategy that's been criticized by environmental groups, partly on concern the sites may be terrorist targets.

US Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who became Senate Majority Leader this week, opposes the government's chosen site in that state's Yucca Mountain.

The next new U.S. nuclear plant probably will be built in the U.S. South or Southeast, where economic growth is driving demand for so-called baseload plants, usually coal-fueled or nuclear plants designed to run at all hours and all seasons to provide basic power supply, Rowe said.

Most of the pending nuclear-plant licenses are for sites in southeastern states and Texas. A few proposals have also been made in the state of New York and Maryland.

Atlanta-based utility owner Southern Co. has won regulatory approval in Georgia to charge customers for the cost of licensing new nuclear plants, and Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp. is seeking the same in North Carolina. That's a source of funding not available in Texas, where power-generation, power delivery and retail-power sales are separate businesses, Rowe said.

No new reactor has been ordered in the U.S. since the 1979 accident at Three-Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pa.

JIM POLSON
Bloomberg News

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