Nuclear Street - Nuclear Power Plant News, Jobs, and Careers

NRG Energy announced Tuesday that it will write off its investment to date in two new reactors at the South Texas Project near Houston. The company said the new build – started in partnership with Toshiba and Tokyo Electric Power Co. – faced “diminished prospects” following a multiple-reactor accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

“The tragic nuclear incident in Japan has introduced multiple uncertainties around new nuclear development in the United States which have had the effect of dramatically reducing the probability that STP 3&4 can be successfully developed in a timely fashion,” NRC CEO David Crane said in a release. “We continue to believe both in the absolute necessity of a U.S. nuclear renaissance and that STP 3&4 is the best new nuclear development project in the country bar none. However, the extraordinary challenges facing U.S. nuclear development in the present circumstance and the very considerable financial resources expended by NRG on the project over the past five years make it impossible for us to justify to our shareholders any further financial participation in the development of the STP project.”

The release went on to say that NRG will write off $481 million in assets in Nuclear Innovation North America, its joint venture with Toshiba, which contributed $150 million of that amount. CPS Energy owns a 7.6 percent share in the project, and last year TEPCO promised to invest $155 million to the new units’ construction if the project received a federal loan guarantee.

Most work at the project had been stopped last month following the tsunami-triggered crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. While the NRG release stated it would continue to cooperate with its partners on STP units 3 and 4, NINA’s substantially reduced workforce would only continue work on obtaining a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.