Eight years after joining forces to advance new nuclear plant construction in the U.S., the 10 utilities that make up NuStart Energy Development have announced they will disband the consortium.In a release Monday, NuStart said it will return its capital to member companies and disband the organization at the end of the month, having achieved its objectives. Those included the licensing of new reactors under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s previously untested combined construction and operating license (COL) process, and the completion of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design. In recent months the NRC has licensed the design as well as four new reactors at the Vogtle and V.C. Summer nuclear plants.“NuStart was the leader and motivator for the licensing efforts of what are now four new nuclear reactors in the United States,” NuStart President Marilyn Kray said in a release. “In addition to the approval of the AP1000 reactor and Plant Vogtle, South Carolina Electric & Gas received approval for its expansion of V.C. Summer just weeks after Plant Vogtle, using the economies of scale NuStart created.”NuStart was one element of the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Power 2010 initiative. DOE provided $355 million for nuclear plant development, according to the release, and contributions by NuStart and Westinghouse totaled about $975 million. NuStart supported 18 COL applications and encouraged more than $2 billion in private investment in the industry.NuStart’s member companies are: DTE Energy, Duke Energy, EDF, Entergy, Exelon, Florida Power & Light, Progress Energy, South Carolina Electric and Gas, Southern Co. and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Exelon? That was the huge Obama donor in 2007-2008.