Safety is the first concern in nuclear operations, and throughout Southern Company.

Nuclear power is re-emerging as a viable way to meet new demand for electricity with the added benefit of no air emissions, including carbon dioxide. Southern Company is moving to make nuclear energy an option to meet growing demand for electricity in the 2016 time frame and beyond.

To that end, Southern Company is pursuing a new combined construction and operating license process and advancing new nuclear technologies through NuStart Energy Development—a nuclear technology energy consortium comprised of power generation companies and reactor vendors. Southern Company is a founding member of NuStart.
More about NuStart »

Uranium pellets: Each pellet produces the power of one ton of coal. Reactors have hundreds of pellets placed end to end in rods. Bundles of rods make up the core of the reactor. If coal were used instead of uranium, it would take about 20 million tons of ore—enough to fill 200,000 railroad cars in a train 2,000 miles long—to equal each core's output.

We are also pursuing adding two new units at Plant Vogtle in Burke County, Georgia. Southern Nuclear has filed applications with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an Early Site Permit and a Combined Construction and Operating License at Plant Vogtle. The Early Site Permit will allow the NRC to review and pre-approve the plant site for construction of new nuclear units and will allow the company to conduct design, construction, and other site-specific evaluations before making a decision to build. The Combined Construction and Operating License provides a unified license to construct and operate a new plant based on an NRC pre-approved design at a specific site. Additionally, Georgia Power received state certification for the units on March 17, 2009.

We selected the light-water Westinghouse AP1000 technology for potential new units at Plant Vogtle. More than 30 new nuclear plants are under construction in 12 countries around the world—almost all using light-water reactor technology. The AP1000 has received design certification from the NRC. It's safe, more efficient, and simpler than current models. More about the AP1000 »

View a map showing our nuclear generating plants (shown in green).

In addition, we continue to evaluate other sites within our service territory for nuclear plants. Evaluating these sites is a part of our long-range generation planning which aims to identify the most cost-effective, reliable, and environmentally responsible fuel sources.