With the unanimous approval of the state's Siting Board, a project to add two nuclear reactors to a South Florida powerplant has passed a major milestone. Since the project was proposed in 2006, it has survived the 2007-08 financial crisis, the flight from nukes after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, intense environmental scrutiny, local resistance to transmission lines and an eight-week administrative-law court hearing focused largely on the siting of the lines. Ahead lies the arduous effort to get a combined construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) initiated the project eight years ago with a notice to NRC of its intention to apply for two new reactors at the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station in Florida City. The new units, Turkey Point 6 and 7, would join two 885-MW pressurized-water reactors, two 400-MW gas/oil-fired steam turbines and a 1,150-MW gas combined-cycle unit at the station.