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This is the third site selected in the firm’s search for a suitable location
Alternative Energy Holdings Inc. (OTC:AEHI) announced Oct 20 it has selected a new site for its planned nuclear reactor in Idaho. The site in is Payette County, Idaho, some 60 miles northwest of Boise and about five miles northeast [at Stone Quarry Rd.] of the intersection of State Highway 52 and Big Willow Rd.
In a press release, AEHI said it submitted a comprehensive plan amendment application in Payette County, Idaho for the development of a nuclear power generating facility on approximately 5,100 acres of land.
“This is a key step to developing an additional nuclear site in Idaho,” said CEO Don Gillispie.
In a telephone interview with Mary Mejia, Administrator of the Payettee County Planning & Zoning Office, I confirmed that AEHI has filed the amendment. It is now being reviewed by the staff. At this time, Mejia said, the company has only requested a change in the plan from agricultural use to industrial use. The current plan calls for non-irrigated agriculture uses such as grazing.
“This is not prime farmland,” she said.
The site is just north of the Payette River [map]. AEHI would have to acquire water rights in the area to provide cooling water for the planned reactor.
If all goes well in the review, a public hearing could be held as early as Nov 12th at which time the county planning & zoning commission will make a recommendation to the Payette County Commission.
Once that happens, the county has a minimum of 30 days to hold a hearing on a decision to change the plan.
The comprehensive plan change is the first of two steps to approve use of the site for a nuclear reactor. Mejia said AEHI will also need a conditional use permit for the site since nuclear reactors are not listed as an allowed use in the industrial section of the county zoning ordinance. That permit would also require a separate public hearing.
Third time for site selection process
This is the third time AEHI has selected a site for its planned nuclear reactor. The firm has an application pending with nearby Elmore County, but that process is bogged down with the county commissioners sending the application back to the planning commission for more work. The site selected by AEHI in Elmore County, near Mountain Home, ID, would be adjacent to the Snake River. However, the county commissioners indicated a preference for a high desert site without nearby water supplies, but near the American Ecology hazardous waste landfill.
A prior application in Owyhee County was withdrawn after AEHI decided the site wasn’t suitable in terms of its physical characteristics. That site, near the intersection of state highways 78 and 51, would also have used water from the Snake River.
AEHI at one time it said would build an Areva 1,600 MW EPR. More recently, AEHI has not said what reactor design it will reference in a COL application with the NRC. The NRC lists AEHI as expected to file a COL application in 2009. With the kickoff of a new site selection process, it is uncertain when AEHI will file with the NRC for either an Early Site Permit or a Combined Construction and Operating License.
Not Warren Buffet’s site
In 2007 Warren Buffett’s Mid American Energy utility evaluated a ‘greenfield’ site in Payette County for a 1,750 MW Mitsubishi nuclear reactor. Buffet withdrew funding for the project when it became clear how many difficulties he faced with the Idaho site. One of them was the huge expense of upgrading the transmission and distribution infrastructure to get the power from the reactor to customers. There are no other commercial nuclear reactors in Idaho.
Martin Johncox, a spokesman for AEHEI, told this blog in a telephone interview that the new site in Payette County selected by AEHI is not the same one evaluated by Warren Buffett in 2007.
Andrea Shipley, head of the Snake River Alliance, told reporter Rocky Barker at the Idaho Statesman Oct 20 "Warren Buffett's Mid American Energy spent millions of dollars researching whether or not Payette County was a good place to build a nuclear power reactor and pulled out."
"This [Buffet] is a company with money and expertise, two things that Gillispie is struggling with," Shipley said.
Even AEHI gets the firm’s newest site approved by the Payette County Commissioners, it still must raise $4-6 billion from investors. The firm’s assets, as described in recent SEC filings, are less than $500,000. In the past few years, AEHI has hired three investment banking firms. So far, none of them have succeeded in getting major investors, like a utility, to sign up for the project.
While there are many uncertainties ahead for AEHI, one thing is sure. CEO Don Gillispie is persistent in his quest for his reactor even it it leads him trekking across the landscape of southwestern Idaho in search of a home for it.
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