Nuclear foes hit effort to restart TVA reactor

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

Nuclear foes hit effort to restart TVA reactor

Energy agency should focus on conservation instead, critics say

02/27/01

By KARIN MEADOWS

Times Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions' push to restart a once troubled Browns Ferry nuclear reactor could increase the federal utility's debt by $1 billion or more and threaten public health, critics charge.

There's no lack of energy in the Southeast and, rather than spending more money to create power, TVA should be educating its customers about how to conserve electricity, said Stephen Smith, executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Tennessee and Alabama residential customers are first and third, respectively, in the nation in the amount of electricity they consume per person, Smith said late last week.

"There is not an energy shortage in our region as in California, but there is an efficiency shortage," said Smith, whose organization represents a coalition of environmental and consumer groups in Alabama and Tennessee. "If we were more efficient, the need for the plant and other polluting facilities would be dramatically reduced."

Smith was responding to Sessions' call last week to revive the stalled nuclear industry during a visit to TVA's Browns Ferry nuclear plant in southeast Limestone County.

TVA shut down Browns Ferry's three reactors in the mid-1980s after a series of operating problems raised safety concerns. Public fear of radioactive waste, a by-product of nuclear reactors, led to the utility industry's reluctance nationwide to put other reactors online.

TVA has restarted two of the idled reactors, but a third remains mothballed.

Sessions, R-Mobile, also wants TVA to finish its almost completed Bellefonte nuclear plant near Scottsboro. TVA stopped construction there in 1988 because of unexpected safety-related costs at Browns Ferry and its Watts Bar, Tenn., nuclear plant.

"This would be of particular benefit to the Tennessee Valley," Sessions said during an interview at his Senate office Monday. "What you want in energy is a surplus. That keeps prices low."

Sessions said it's time to break out of the nation's antinuclear sentiment. He plans to introduce a bill that would give utilities tax credits for restarting mothballed reactors or finishing nuclear plants abandoned after nuclear power's fall from grace.

Sessions' nuclear power tax breaks would equal one-half what Washington gives to utilities that invest in alternative energy sources such as the sun and wind. He contends that controlled nuclear reactions, just like other energy sources that don't rely on coal and other carbon-based fuel, can generate electricity without polluting the air.

Smith called Sessions "naive."

"It's ironic that the Browns Ferry reactor almost melted down. That was before the Three Mile Island emissions of radioactive waste into the air in 1979," Smith said.

A fire started by a Browns Ferry worker using a candle to check air leaks caused the nation's worst nuclear power accident until a more severe fire at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania virtually halted new nuclear plant construction in the United States.

"That's the concern. You have the potential with a catastrophic accident with nuclear power," Smith said. "That's what happened at Chernobyl." An explosion at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in the mid-'80s spread a radioactive cloud over Europe and sickened thousands of residents near the plant.

TVA is looking into the possibility of restarting the idle Browns Ferry reactor, which could cost an estimated $1 billion, spokesman Gil Francis said Monday.

The demand for electricity continues to grow with the population and the utility must consider how it will meet future power needs, Francis said.

But Smith said TVA has no business getting further into debt. TVA currently owes the federal government $25.9 billion. Most of that is due to the utility's over-ambitious plans to develop nuclear power, Smith said.

Sessions, Smith said, is "coming in and saying, 'TVA, maybe you shouldn't pay down the debt. Maybe you should use this money to start up a third plant.'"

"That's not good for the ratepayers of the Tennessee Valley."

U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, has also called for completing Bellefonte and

restarting Browns Ferry's third reactor.