TVA may vote today to restart reactor

TVA may vote today to restart reactor

Environmentalists
cite safety fears,
risk to ratepayers

By BILL POOVEY
Associated Press

CHATTANOOGA — The Tennessee Valley Authority could ,..vote today to restart a mothballed nuclear reactor in north Alabama — a decision that environmentalists contend would be gambling with safety and ignoring ratepayers.

TVA watchdog Steven Smith, director" the Soulhem Mance tor aean Energy, said the board has signaled that it will approve the reactivating of TVA's oldest nuclear power generator, the Unit 1 reactor at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens, Ala.

"No other utility could get away with doing this — making a $1.8 billion decision based on staff recommendation," he said. "This is a huge, huge gamble. This is a very risky proposition for ratepayers."

TVA spokesman Gil Francis declined to speculate yesterday on what the board — Chairman Glenn McCullough and directors Skila Harris and Bill Baxter — might decide at today's meeting in Huntsville, Ala.

Francis said the utility had spent months evaluating the restart.

Baxter, the newest board member, has said restarting the reactor looks like a good business decision.

Smith said restarting a 29-year-old reactor after a 17-year shutdown was "very contrary" to what other electricity providers were doing to boost generating capacity, such as developing natural gas-fired plants.

"There is nobody who is restarting 1960s vintage nuclear reactors that are of 17 years," Smith said. "They are taking this nuclear reactor and asking it to go beyond its life. So they are going to run it longer than it was designed to run. They are trying to get more power out of it than it was designed to do."

Reactors provide about one-third of the power generated by TVA, while coal is the fuel source for about two-thirds. TVA recently stopped work on an unfinished natural gas-powered plant at Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma after investing nearly $150 million.

"They are taking this nuclear reactor (at Browns Ferry) and asking it to go beyond its life."

— --Smilh,
director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

TVA's nuclear staff in March recommended restarting the reactor, which as projected would power about 650,000 "typical valley homes."

The projected $1.8 billion price tag poses a challenge for the nation's largest public utility, which is under pressure to reduce a $25 billion debt that is not permitted to exceed $30 billion.

Smith said that "the last time (TVA) increased rates they said were going to use money to pay down the debt by 50 percent, from $27 billion to $14 billion. ... Right around $2 billion has been reduced. Now they are just going to take about all the money and commit it to go toward finishing this nuclear reactor."

Smith said a decision to restart the reactor would backtrack on TVA policy to pursue alternatives to nuclear power, including the Green Power Switch where customers pay higher rates to support power from renewable sources.

Carol Womacks of Scottsboro, Ala., spokeswoman for the environmental group Citizens of Jackson County, said her group was worried about economics and safety. "As a ratepayer, I don't think the money should be put in a plant that is that old," she said. "We are just pushing the margin, pushing machinery that is not meant to do what they want it to.

"There has been a fair amount of population growth in Huntsville and the Muscle Shoals area," Smith said. "I think they need to be looking at updating evacuation routes."

TVA voluntarily shut down the Unit 1 reactor in March 1985 because of safety concerns. Units 2 and 3 at Browns Ferry also stopped in 1985 but were restarted in 1991 and 1995 after major renovations.

TVA provides electricity to 83 million people in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi.