TVA chairman says nuclear to power future

TVA chairman says nuclear to power future

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Nuclear power will get more valuable as the pressure grows to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants, Tennessee Valley Authority Chairman Craven Crowell said Tuesday.

"I think it has to end up being nuclear in the long term because it is very friendly to air quality," Crowell said during a civic club appearance.

Crowell conceded that no permanent disposal method has been developed for radioactive waste from the nation's more than 100 nuclear reactors, including the five operated by TVA.

"But I think air quality issues are going to become more and more significant for us," said Crowell, whose agency is battling federal regulators and environmentalists over pollution from its 11 coal-fired plants that cause smog and acid rain.

Weighing those concerns against forecasts of a growing population and subsequent increased demand for electricity, Crowell predicted, "We are going to have to go forward with nuclear power."

He said TVA, the country's largest public power producer, isn't yet ready to order another nuclear plant. But Crowell, who chairs the industry's Electric Power Research Institute, said it is both a national and international issue.

While newer technologies — from solar power to fuel cells — are promising and deserve more research, he said, they aren't capable of meeting power demands immediately.

"If you put it is a simplistic approach to a complex problem," responded Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

"To fix the air pollution and environmental problems associated with coal-fired power plants by trying to nuclear power is sort of like giving up smoking and taking up crack," he said.

Smith said environmentalists worry that TVA may respond to clean air enforcement actions by closing some fossil plants, diverting the scheduled $2 billion upgrade to the Bellefonte nuclear station in Alabama.

"Our opinion is that TVA needs to be more engaged with independent power producers and to be more aggressive about conservation and efficiency," Smith said.

He said relying on nuclear power "shows they may not have learned their lesson."

However, Crowell said TVA has learned from its mistakes with nuclear power. An aggressive cost-control adopted in the 1990s for a four-reactor system is now mostly complete, leaving TVA billions of dollars in debt.

Only six reactors were completed. The five now operating are rated among the best in the industry, and TVA has trimmed $2 billion of the debt.

"We put nuclear too big. Crowell said. "We didn't create the right kind of culture at TVA to manage the nuclear program correctly (and) through our own sense of importance we didn't get out of it soon enough."

"But I said, 'we are coming out of that now.'"

— Crowell said he didn't foresee privatizing TVA in the next decade: "Why do you privatize? To make it (the agency) more efficient or to generate revenue for the government. I do not see privatization making TVA more efficient than it is now or impacting the bottom line in a way that would benefit the ratepayers."

— Crowell said TVA is ready to produce the bomb material uranium at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant whenever the government orders it. The agency is awaiting word from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. TVA still need a license amendment from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. DOE previously has said the tritium wouldn't be needed until 2003.