INTERVIEW-AEP CEO says will wait to build US nuclear plant

By Bernard Woodall

LOS ANGELES, April 28 (Reuters) - American Electric Power (AEP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will join the "second wave" of new U.S. nuclear power plants, waiting until the middle of the next decade before applying for a new reactor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael G. Morris said in an interview on Monday.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects some 17 companies to apply in the next several years to build more than 30 reactors. They would be the first new reactors to be ordered since 1978, the year before the Three Mile Island plant accident in Pennsylvania.

Morris said that AEP won't apply for a new nuclear power plant until around 2015, which is about the same time the first batch of new nuclear plants are expected by the NRC to be in service.

"It's hard to put a number on how long legal challenges will delay them, but I'd guess five to seven years of legal delays in the first wave of new nuclear stations coming on," Morris said.

Adding five to seven years on top of that date to allow for legal challenges, and the first reactors will open closer to 2020 than 2015, he indicated.

Morris spoke on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference held at the Beverly Hills Hilton.

Companies planning to build new nuclear plants include Constellation Energy (CEG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) PPL Corp (PPL.N: Quote, Profile, Research), and FPL Group (FPL.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

Still, 104 nuclear power plants generate about 20 percent of the electricity used in the United States. Coal-fired plants account for half U.S. power generation.