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Exelon to leave pebble bed modular reactor project

The following appeared on the NY Times Web site, and can be found at

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/16/business/16EXEL.html



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist 

3050 Traymore Lane

Bowie, MD  20715-2024



E-mail:  jenday1@email.msn.com (H)      



---------------

April 16, 2002

 

Exelon Quitting New Nuclear-Plant Project



By REUTERS



WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) - The Exelon Corporation, the nation's

biggest owner of nuclear power plants, is dropping out of an international

consortium that is developing a smaller, cheaper kind of nuclear plant, an

Energy Department official said today. 



The utility, which is based in Chicago, will halt its financing of the

so-called pebble bed modular reactor, now in the design stage, said Norton

Haberman, the department official. 



The pebble bed modular reactor produces about one-tenth of the electricity

of a typical nuclear plant, which produces about 1,000 megawatts. Supporters

of the new technology say it would be faster, cheaper and safer to build

because it uses helium as the plant's coolant instead of pressurized water. 



Exelon executives were meeting with other project investors in South Africa

and were expected to make an announcement on Tuesday, an Exelon vice

president, Elizabeth Moler, said. She refused to comment further on the

status of the project. 



Exelon holds a 12.5 percent stake in the project. Other participants include

South Africa's state-owned electric utility, the Industrial Development

Corporation, with 25 percent, and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., with 22.5

percent. The consortium had planned to build a $300 million demonstration

model in South Africa beginning next year. 

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