approved. The Carter Administration is now re- 
vising its proposed “Nuclear Siting and Licensing 
Act.” It also is preparing a “Comprehensive State 
Siting Act” to require the States to do additional 
energy planning and to provide special Federal as- 
sistance to the States. 
Floating Offshore Nuclear Powerplants 
Substantive Policy Issues. 
The idea is to build nuclear powerplants at a 
manufacturing facility, barge them to a site several 
miles off the coast, anchor them within an artificial 
breakwater while connecting them to the shore 
through underwater electrical lines, and then use 
them as a major source of electrical power. The 
perceived advantages are two-fold. One is that it 
is easier to site them, because there is plenty of off- 
shore space at a time when it is politically difficult 
to find sites onshore. Another is that building these 
plants on an assembly line will permit “standardiza- 
tion” of the reactor design, something which may 
increase quality control and lower costs. Now each 
nuclear powerplant is built separately, on site, with- 
out standardization. 
Two companies are proposing to build the world’s 
first offshore nuclear system. Offshore Power Sys- 
tems, a subsidiary of Westinghouse, has begun a 
manufacturing facility at Jacksonville, Florida. Pub- 
lic Service of New Jersey, a major utility, has con- 
tracted for two plants to be built by the Jacksonville 
plant for an offshore Atlantic Generating Station 
near Atlantic City. Neither company has received the 
necessary permits to begin work. 
In this first case, there are both generic and site- 
specific considerations. One generic issue deals with 
how safe and reliable offshore plants are compared 
with land-based units, and particularly what safe- 
guards might be needed to prevent or contain an 
accident where a melted reactor core fell into the 
water and the radioactive material spread. The Nu- 
clear Regulatory Commission and oiher are studying: 
this question. 
Another generic issue is whether fioating plants 
should be located near those coastal waters that are 
used for other purposes, such as fishing or shipping. 
Siting criteria and planning may be desirable if it 
appears that large numbers of these plants will be 
deployed. 
There are also questions about the particular site 
that Public Service is proposing. Chief among the 
concerns is that the plant would be near an area 
popular with summer tourists and difficult to evac- 
uate in case of emergency.*** 
The Siting Process 
The main agency involved is the Nuclear Regu- 
174U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, op. cit. 
note 171, particularly pp. 197-237. 
latory Commission, which like other Federal agen- 
cies, reviews the proposals submitted by industry and, 
if they meet the criteria, issues the necessary permits. 
In this case, three main permits are involved: a 
manufacturing license to build the Jacksonville facil- 
ity, a construction permit to begin the Atlantic Gen- 
erating Station, and later an operating license for 
the station. Given recent delays in the project, it is 
unclear when these permits may be used. In addi- 
tion to the NRC permits, Public Service will need 
Army Corps of Engineers dredge permits, Coast 
Guard approval of the barges holding the reactors, 
and various other Federal, State, and local permits. 
There now appears to be little serious criticism of 
this siting process, perhaps partly because NRC is 
proceeding carefully, allowing time to consider such 
generic issues as the results of an unlikely, but still 
possible, meltdown accident. 
However, the Office of Technology Assessment 
and others have expressed concern that the present 
siting process may not be well equipped to handle 
the large-scale deployment of floating plants, partly 
because there now is no mechanism for developing 
general siting criteria for them, partly because some- 
thing analogous to the Deepwater Port Act may 
be needed if floating powerplants are to be located 
outside the 3-mile limit of State jurisdiction.*”® 
The Role of Coastal Zone Management in the Siting 
of Energy Facilities 
The Coastal Zone Management Act Amendments 
of 1976 deal primarily with energy matters, Outer 
Continental Shelf oil and gas in particular. The 
amendments give the Coastal Zone Act these energy 
facility siting features. 
1. Planning. The 1976 changes add a new section 
(305(b)(8) that requires: 
“(8) A planning process for energy facil- 
ities to be located in, or which may sig- 
nificantly affect, the coastal zone, including 
but not limited to, a process for anticipat- 
ing and managing the impacts from such 
facilities.” 
Several premises seem to be behind this provision. 
One is that by requiring States participating in the 
coastal zone program to plan in this area, the re- 
sulting State coastal program will provide guidance 
to both companies that wish to site facilities and 
State officials who will have to pass judginent on 
their applications. Furthermore, coastal zone pro- 
grams are seen as able to discuss tradeoffs and alter- 
natives because they consider a range of energy 
facilities and a range of social concerns (unlike air 
and water quality plans, for instance, which focus 
on one matter), are concerned with coordinating 
175 Ibid., pp. 99-101 and 106-111. 
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