Ameren cancels Callaway 2 EPR in Missouri!
As reported by the Columbia Daily Tribune, Ameren Corp. has officially cancelled its proposed new reactor, Callaway 2, by withdrawing its license application from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ameren has previously suspended the project in May 2009.
The proposed new reactor was a French Areva EPR (so-called "Evolutionary Power Reactor"), the second to be officially cancelled recently (the other being Calvert Cliffs 3 in MD). At one time, seven EPRs were proposed across the U.S., with more under consideration in Ontario. Recently, Areva in France has entered bankruptcy, as an EPR in Finland has slipped further behind schedule and more over budget, and one in France has admitted potentially fatal construction flaws in the reactor pressure vessel (in Europe, the EPR is called the "Europena Pressurized Reactor").
Ameren's lobbyists failed for several state legislative sessions to overturn a 40-year old popular referendum in Missouri banning CWIP (Construction Work in Progress), another fatal blow to Callaway 2. Ameren was also passed over by the U.S. Department of Energy for hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies for R&D on SMRs (so-called "Small Modular Reactors").
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Sonal Patel has also reported on this story, in a PowerMag article entitled "Ameren scraps planned Missouri nuclear unit, cites falling renewable costs." Patel quoted Ameren CEO Warner Baxter:
“While we continue to believe nuclear power must be an important clean energy source for our company and country, as evidenced by the 20-year license extension we received this past March for our Callaway Energy Center, this loss provision was driven by recent changes in vendor support for licensing efforts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, our assessment of long-term capacity needs, declining cost of alternative generation technologies and the regulatory framework in Missouri among other things,” explained Ameren CEO Warner Baxter on July 31, during a second quarter 2015 earnings call.
