The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4 to 1 today to approve construction of two new reactors in South Carolina, with the agency chairman again casting the lone dissenting vote over safety concerns tied to Japan's nuclear accident.

Four commissioners -- two Democrats and two Republicans -- agreed to issue two construction and operation licenses to Scana Corp. for two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Station in Jenkinsville, S.C.

The plant, about 26 miles northwest of Columbia, is the second application in weeks to be approved by the NRC and represents the first new construction in more than 30 years. Construction of the roughly $10 billion reactors could begin as soon as the license is issued, and they could be brought online in 2017 and 2018.

Commissioners at a meeting in Rockville, Md., expressed confidence in their approval, but NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko wrote in the order that he opposed the license because the NRC isn't requiring the utility to make safety changes stemming from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi disaster before powering up the plant.

Jaczko cast a similar dissenting vote earlier this year when the commission voted 4 to 1 to approve Southern Co.'s application for a license to build two new reactors in Georgia.

The NRC is currently crafting rules to ensure U.S. reactors can withstand disasters like the magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, triggering explosions, radioactive releases and evacuations.

Approving the new projects without having a firm grip on what safety changes need to first be made is creating inconsistency in the NRC's oversight, Jaczko warned. He pointed out that the Summer plant is being required to develop strategies for cooling the reactors if power is lost, something the Vogtle plant didn't have to do.

"We already see the inconsistency that will be inevitable under the majority approach," Jaczko said. "This type of happenstance cannot justify issuing COLs [combined operating licenses] with differing safety standards. But this will be the outcome if we proceed with licensing without proactively imposing license conditions requiring compliance with all Fukushima recommendations."

Jaczko said plant operators could shirk making the necessary safety changes if the NRC doesn't impose a binding requirement. "Without a binding requirement in the license, we know from past experience that licensees may be relieved from compliance based on cost considerations or delay compliance for extended periods of time," he said.

Scana originally submitted its application to obtain a license in 2008, and will pay 55 percent of the estimated cost of the project. Santee Cooper, South Carolina's largest power producer, is responsible for the rest.

Mixed reaction

The NRC's approval received bipartisan applause today but sparked concern among consumer advocates fearing ratepayers will be charged for the reactors.

Nuclear Safety Subcommittee Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) joined the Nuclear Energy Institute in calling the approval a step in the right direction. "A renewed nuclear energy industry in this country means clean energy into the future and opportunities for American economic growth, with the potential to create thousands of short- and long-term good-paying American jobs," Carper said in a statement.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new reactors will create thousands of construction jobs and bolster nuclear development in the United States. Inhofe, an outspoken critic of Jaczko, questioned whether the Obama administration would travel to South Carolina to tout job creation at the site despite the chairman's opposition to the license.

"Yet, despite their own NRC Chairman's attempts to defeat their construction, let's see if anyone from the Obama administration comes to South Carolina to tout the 3,800 jobs and the increased energy security that these new reactors will bring," Inhofe said in a statement. "With an election coming up, I think we all know what's going to happen here."

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) was less optimistic and said the decision represented "another 4-to-1 Nuclear Regulatory Commission vote, yet another victory for the nuclear industry's effort to avoid implementation of the safety upgrades recommended by the NRC's professional staff in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns."

Markey, Jaczko's former boss, criticized the commissioners for undermining "strong, common-sense nuclear safety requirements" and again questioned the safety of the reactor design that the utilities are using in South Carolina. The NRC approved the Advanced Passive 1000 design last year, a 1,100-megawatt electric pressurized-water reactor (Greenwire, Feb. 24).

Markey said the design's shield building could shatter if impacted by an earthquake or other natural or man-made impact.

Westinghouse Electric Co., which created the reactor design, worked to assure federal nuclear regulators last year that the design poses no safety threat after the commission questioned whether the shield building might not withstand pressure from both seismic events and extreme temperature changes. NRC was also concerned about the strength of tanks that hold water for cooling reactors during emergencies.

Consumer advocates and anti-nuclear and environmental groups were quick to criticize the decision and express skepticism about cost overruns and delays in construction.

Jim Warren, executive director of NCWarn, said it's unclear how ratepayers could be affected if Santee Cooper, a state utility, sells part of its share of the project to another company. Mollie Gore, a spokeswoman for Santee Cooper, said it is in fact talking with other utilities to about selling a portion of the company's share, and has a letter of intent with Duke Energy.

Susan Corbett, chair of the South Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, criticized the NRC's approval of the project in the wake of Fukushima. "Even when the chair of our nation's highest nuclear regulatory agency questions the wisdom of rushing forward, utilities plunge ahead in states like Georgia and South Carolina without stopping to consider the alternatives to building new nuclear plants, or the consequences of their actions," Corbett said in a statement.

The Sierra Club, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability said the utilities will recoup costs from ratepayers with no opportunity for refunds if the projects are canceled.

Nuclear power critic Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth said the Vogtle and Southern projects will likely be the only ones to move forward in the United States, "indicating that the much-touted nuclear renaissance has fizzled in the face of falling prices of natural gas, lower electricity demand and the impacts of the Fukushima nuclear disaster."