Entergy Nuclear will field questions later this month on its January decision to suspend reviews of its application to build a second reactor at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Claiborne County.

If you go

Entergy Nuclear’s meeting with the public will be at 5 p.m. March 23 at Port Gibson City Hall.

A community-wide hearing will be March 23 at Port Gibson City Hall, company spokesman Jami Cameron said.

The suspension resulted from a breakdown in talks with GE Hitachi, which was to be contracted to develop the boiling water reactor at a second facility if a decision to build a new $4 billion plant was made, the company said.

“We haven’t fielded any face-to-face questions, but it’ll be one of the first things talked about,” Cameron said.

Reactor parts were pre-ordered in July 2007. A fifth design revision was submitted to the NRC in May 2008, coupled with requests to GE Hitachi about critical parts, Entergy officials have said.

The early site permit at Grand Gulf was approved in March 2007 after a five-year process. Environmental studies have been completed and have met federal standards. Entergy’s River Bend site in St. Francisville, La., has won the same approvals. Actual development at either or both sites will be determined based on energy demand and the cost of energy production from various sources, company officials have said. The now-suspended Nuclear Regulatory Commission review of the application for a construction and operating license was also expected to have taken five years.

According to the original timetable, a second nuclear reactor at Grand Gulf could be complete by 2017. Grand Gulf has a 1,266-megawatt boiling water reactor on its 2,100-acre site off U.S. 61 that became operational in 1985. It employs more than 700 people.

Also a likely topic is an economic development plan in the works for Claiborne County. Cameron said the utility has partnered with county supervisors, Claiborne County Hospital and area businesses on the recently launched plan.

Almost all of the county’s income has, for 24 years, come from taxes on the utility. As talks about a second plant increased, supervisors hired Jackson attorney Mike Espy to negotiate and monitor future local benefits to be derived. Initially, all of the $16 million in annual property taxes paid by Grand Gulf went to the Claiborne and Port Gibson. The Legislature later voted to spread half the money to other cities and counties in the utility’s 45-county service area.

The early site permit process, begun in 2002, was largely funded by Congress under Bush administration incentives to ramp up nuclear construction. The Obama administration’s position on nuclear plants is not firm, but as a candidate Obama often discounted nuclear power as a component in the nation’s future energy supply until a location or method of disposing of nuclear waste is established.

*

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com.