South Texas Nuclear Generating Station

1971-1994

On December 6, 1971, Houston Lighting & Power Co. (HL&P), the City of Austin, the City of San Antonio, and the Central Power and Light Co. (CPL) initiated a feasibility study of constructing a jointly-owned nuclear plant. The initial cost estimate for the plant was $974 million (equivalent to approximately $5,700,741,167 in 2015 United States Dollars).

By mid-1973, HL&P and CPL had chosen Bay City as the site for the project and San Antonio had signed on as a partner in the project. Brown and Root was selected as the architect and construction company. On November 17, 1973 voters in Austin narrowly approved their city's participation and the city signed onto the project on December 1. Austin held several more referendums through the years on whether to stay in the project or not.

An application for plant construction permits was submitted to the Atomic Energy Commission, now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in May 1974 and the NRC issued the permits on December 22, 1975. Construction started at December 22, 1975.

By 1978, the South Texas Project was two years behind schedule and had substantial cost overruns. A new management team had been put in place by HL&P in late 1978 to deal with the cost overruns, schedule delays and other challenges. However, events at Three Mile Island in March 1979 had a substantial impact on the nuclear industry including STNP. The new team again moved forward with developing a new budget and schedule. Brown and Root revised their completion schedule to June, 1989 and the cost estimate to $4.4–$4.8 billion. HL&P executives consulted with its own project manager and concluded that Brown and Root was not making satisfactory progress and a decision was reached to terminate their role as architect/engineer but retain them as constructor. Brown and Root was relieved as architect/engineer in September 1981 and Bechtel Corporation contracted to replace them. Less than two months later, Brown and Root withdrew as the construction contractor and Ebasco Constructors was hired to replace them in February 1982 as constructor. With the new management team of HL&P, Bechtel, and Ebasco in place they overcame incredible regulatory and political obstacles to set the project on a path to successful completion.

Austin voters authorized the City Council on November 3, 1981 to sell the city's 16 percent interest in the STP. No buyers were found.

Unit 1 reached initial criticality on March 8, 1988 and went into commercial operation on August 25. Unit 2 reached initial criticality on March 12, 1989 and went into commercial operation on June 19.

In February 1993, both units had to be taken offline to resolve problems with the steam-driven auxiliary feedwater pumps. They were not back in service until March (Unit 1) and May (Unit 2) of 1994. The history of STNP is somewhat unusual when most nuclear plants that were in the early stages of engineering construction at the time of the Three Mile Island event were never completed. STNP operating team has been noted highly for its stellar operating history which must also be based upon a solid design and construction plan.

2006-present

On June 19, 2006, NRG Energy filed a Letter Of Intent with the NRC to build two 1,358-MWe Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs) at the South Texas Nuclear Project site. South Texas Nuclear Project Partners CPS Energy and Austin Energy were not involved in the initial Letter of Intent and development plans.

On September 24, 2007, NRG Energy filed an application with the NRC to build two Toshiba ABWRs at the South Texas Nuclear Project site. It was the first application for a nuclear reactor submitted to the NRC since 1979. The proposed expansion would generate an additional 2700 MW of electrical generating capacity, which would double the capacity of the site. The total estimated cost of constructing the two reactors is $10 billion, or $13 billion with financing, according to Steve Bartley, interim general manager at CPS Energy.

In October 2009, main contractor Toshiba had informed CPS Energy that the cost would be "substantially greater," possibly up to $4 billion more. As a result of the escalating cost estimates for units 3 and 4, in 2010 CPS Energy reached an agreement with NRG Energy to reduce CPS's stake in the new units from 50% to 7.625%. To that point, CPS Energy had invested $370 Million in the expanded plant. CPS Energy's withdrawal from the project put the expansion into jeopardy.

In October 2010, the South Texas Project announced that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had entered into an agreement with Nuclear Innovation North America (a joint venture between the reactor manufacturer, Toshiba, and plant partner NRG Energy) which was the largest of the two stakeholders in the proposed reactors, to purchase an initial 9.2375% stake in the expansion for $125 Million, and $30 Million for an option to purchase an additional stake in the new units for $125 Million more (resulting in approximately 18% ownership by TEPCO, or 500MW of generation capacity). The agreement was made conditional upon STNP securing construction loan guarantees from the United States Department of Energy.

On 19 April 2011, NRG announced in a conference call with shareholders, that they had decided to abandon the permitting process on the two new units due to the ongoing expense of planning and slow permitting process. Anti-nuclear campaigners alleged that the financial situation of new partner TEPCO, combined with the ongoing Fukushima nuclear accident were also key factors in the decision. NRG has written off its investment of $331 million in the project.

Despite the April 2011 NRG announcement of the reactor's cancellation, the NRC continued the combined licensing process for the new reactors in October 2011. It was unclear at the time why the reactor license application was proceeding. During early 2015 some pre-construction activities were performed on site and initial NRC documents listed the original targeted commercial operational dates as March 2015 for unit 3 and a year later for the other unit. On February 9, 2016 the NRC approved the combined license. Due to market conditions, no construction events occurred at that time. The two planned units may never be built and do not have a planned construction date.

1985 Whistleblowing case

Nuclear whistleblower Ronald J. Goldstein was a supervisor employed by EBASCO, which was a major contractor for the construction of the South Texas plants. In the summer of 1985, Goldstein identified safety problems to SAFETEAM, an internal compliance program established by EBASCO and Houston Lighting, including noncompliance with safety procedures, the failure to issue safety compliance reports, and quality control violations affecting the safety of the plant.

SAFETEAM was promoted as an independent safe haven for employees to voice their safety concerns. The two companies did not inform their employees that they did not believe complaints reported to SAFETEAM had any legal protection. After he filed his report to SAFETEAM, Goldstein was fired. Subsequently, Goldstein filed suit under federal nuclear whistleblower statutes.

The U.S. Department of Labor ruled that his submissions to SAFETEAM were protected and his dismissal was invalid, a finding upheld by Labor Secretary Lynn Martin. The ruling was appealed and overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that private programs offered no protection to whistleblowers. After Goldstein lost his case, Congress amended the federal nuclear whistleblower law to provide protection for reports made to internal systems and prevent retaliation against whistleblowers.

Ownership

The STPEGS reactors are operated by the STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC). Ownership is divided among NRG Energy at 44 percent, San Antonio municipal utility CPS Energy at 40 percent and Austin Energy at 16 percent.

Surrounding population

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.

The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 254,049, an increase of 10.2 percent since 2000 according to an msnbc.com report by Bill Dedman Cities within 50 miles include Lake Jackson (40 miles to city center) and Bay City. The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of South Texas Project was 5,651, with a 2.4 percent decrease.

Seismic risk

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at South Texas was 1 in 158,730, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.

Reactor data

The South Texas Generating Station consists of two operational reactors, two additional are planned.