Group says coal plant cheaper than restarting Browns Ferry

Group says coal plant cheaper
than restarting Browns Ferry
By Libby Wann
The Chattanooga Times

A citizens group on Wednesday
continued its charge that TVA has
done a sloppy job justifying the
need to bring back two of three
units at the trouble-plagued
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant that
are now idled.

The Tennessee Valley Energy
Coalition, a citizens group whose
principle interest is helping TVA
identify unneeded costs, earlier
this week released a report that
that the cost of restarting units 1
and 2 at Browns Ferry was higher
than the cost of building new coal-
fired power plants. TVEC's focus is
not anti-nuclear.

"What we have here is a selec-
tion process which fails to address
a potentially viable alternative to
the restart of Browns Ferry."
TVEC spokesman Charles Blair
said of an August 1987 TVA white
paper that supports the restart of
TVA's five operable nuclear units
and the continued construction of
the remaining four.

That TVA document was pre-
pared by officials in the financial
and planning office in the power -
not nuclear - shop. Continuous
tension exists between the two of-
fices, generated mostly because
power officials resent their role in
justifying and recommending rate
increases to cover the monumental
costs of returning the nuclear pro-
gram to health.

TVA sources, admitting that the
preliminary report on the Browns
Ferry restart is incomplete, point
to this tension as one reason the
report appears shallow and is diffi-
cult to defend.

Blair said that restarting
Browns Ferry would only contrib-
ute to what some forecasters say
will be a period of extreme power
glut.

"TVA is going to have trouble
selling any excess capacity on the
open market," Blair said. "Accord-
ing to the North American Relia-
bility Council, the United States al-
ready has 41 percent more electri-
cal power capacity than is needed
and the excess capacity will be
available for the next 10 years.

"If TVA brings all the nuclear
plants back on line, they're just
going to be adding to the excess
power capacity," Blair said.

TVEC believes that TVA will be
left holding a large amount of
unused capacity which they will be
unable to sell on the open market
because TVA's prices will have to
be set at a higher level than their
potential competitors," Blair said.

"In turn, the ratepayers of the
valley will be faced with higher
electric rates as they pay the costs
for maintaining a high level of
unused capacity," Blair said.

TVA's reaction to the report has
been fairly mild. In fact, it's diffi-
cult to find very many people in
the office of power who are willing
to defend it with spirit.

"The general response was that
we had asked those questions that
TVEC asked, and we believe it's
more economical to bring those
units back on line than to build a
new coal plant," said TVA spokes-
man John Moulton when asked to
summarize the agency's reaction.