TVA spends 'blindly' - consumer groups

TVA spends 'blindly' - consumer groups
By RANDELL BECK
The Knoxville Journal

The Tennessee Valley Authority is "blindly" spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fix nuclear plants without studying the wisdom of such a course, two consumer groups charged today.

In joint news conferences, the groups cited a new report by Ralph Nader's Critical Mass Energy Project that says TVA has failed to study the economic feasibility of continuing its billion-dollar nuclear program.

"We are both shocked and disappointed that TVA has not conducted such an analysis on its own," said Greg Mackay, president of Tennessee Valley Energy Coalition, a Knoxville-based consumer group.

Nuclear czar Steven A. White "may be raring to go," Mackay said, "but we want to know what his adventures will cost us — not just today, but five or 10 years down the road."

TVA, the nation's largest utility, has been without nuclear power since August 1985. The agency hopes to restart two units of Sequoyah nuclear plant by the end of this year.

The Critical Mass report says TVA has issued contradictory statements about its commitment to nuclear power. Agency officials, the report contends, told Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn., last year that the Sequoyah plant was needed to replace coal-fired plants. Yet, the report says, TVA told former Sen. Jeremiah Denton, R-Ala., that coal-fired plants were cheaper to operate than nuclear facilities.

Although the consumer groups claimed that TVA has not studied the economic wisdom of continuing its nuclear program, agency spokesman Alan Carmichael said just the reverse is true.

In preparing its budget each year, Carmichael said, TVA forecasts power demand for the coming year. The agency also is currently studying anticipated repair costs at Browns Ferry nuclear plant to determine the feasibility of keeping that facility open.

In addition, Carmichael said, cost-benefit studies in the early 1980s led to the decision to cancel three nuclear plants.

"That planning was open to the public," Carmichael said. "We went to great lengths to get public involvement."

Mackay, president of TVEC, said TVA's nuclear program was "poorly conceived and carelessly developed." The result, he said, has been rate increases for millions of valley residents and threat of still more rate hikes as TVA tries to repair its troubled plants.

While most utilities around the nation have curtailed their ambitions in nuclear power, Mackay said, TVA has plowed ahead with the biggest part of the nuclear program that began in the 1960s.

"TVA has become the ultimate shelter for homeless nuclear technicians," Mackay said.

From Page A2
Knoxville Journal, Stello said the NRC staff "believes that TVA refused to answer a question required of them concerning their compliance with" safety rules at Watts Bar.

"Instead," Stello wrote, "the staff believes that TVA apparently obfuscated the answers to the staff and misrepresented the status of the Watts Bar facility …"

Therefore, Stello continued, an investigation "is requested to determine to what extent such action was intentional, and to which level of management this potential wrongdoing extended."

Stello could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Hayes declined comment. Joseph Fouchard, an NRC spokesman, said: "I won't comment on the matter one way or the other."

Speaking for TVA, Crowell said the federal utility has "admitted to the NRC and the public that we have problems at Watts Bar. We have been engaged in a debate with the NRC over the degree of the problems."

Rather than argue the meaning of pervasive or significant, Crowell said, the two federal agencies should "try to correct the problems at Watts Bar. That's what (TVA) is trying to do."

Although White and other TVA managers believed the issue had been put to rest at the Jan. 12 meeting, Crowell said, "it appears there is some interest in reviving the debate."