Entergy La. River Bend reactor up to 54 pct power

Entergy Corp's 967-megawatt River Bend nuclear power reactor in Louisiana ramped up to 54 percent power by early Wednesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

On Tuesday, the unit was operating at 28 percent of capacity after exiting a refueling outage.

The unit shut by Jan. 7.

The reactor last shut for refueling from April 23 to May 15, 2006. It is on an 18-month refueling cycle,

The station, which entered service in 1986, is located in St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish, about 24 miles north-northwest of Baton Rouge.

The company has said it would submit an application with the NRC this year seeking permission to build one of General Electric Hitachi's 1,550 MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactors (ESBWR) at River Bend. The company, however, has not decided to build the reactor.

If it decides to move forward with the new reactor, the unit could cost an estimated $4.2 billion (at about $2,700 per kilowatt).

One MW powers about 500 homes in Louisiana.

(read more)

(Source: Reuters)