TVA studies Alabama site for next-generation reactor

TVA studies Alabama site

for next-generation reactor

BY DUNCAN MANSFIELD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority has applied with two different groups for Energy Department funding that could lead to the next generation of nuclear power plants in the United States.

"This is not something that is going to happen next year, obviously," TVA director Bill Baxter said Monday. "This is a few years away. But we want to take the necessary steps to see what are logical cost-effective choices."

TVA, the nation's largest public utility, ran up a $25 billion debt largely because it planned and began building more nuclear plants in the 1970s than it needed.

The federal agency, which provides electricity to 8.3 million consumers in seven Southern states, was the last U.S. utility to start a new reactor in 1996 at the Watts Bar plant near Spring City, Tenn..

With five reactors now online, TVA has embarked on a $1.8 billion restoration of a mothballed reactor by 2007 at the Browns Ferry station in Athens, Ala.

That still leaves TVA with the twin-reactor Bellefonte plant in Scottsboro, Ala., that has been on "layup" awaiting completion since 1988.

Rising costs and falling power demand projections forced TVA to halt construction on Bellefonte after more than $4 billion was poured into the 1,500-acre site.

Over the years, TVA has considered building a coal-fired power plant there or a clean burning coal-gasification plant, finding outside partners to finish it or using it to make bomb-grade tritium for the government.

For the past year, TVA has been weighing whether Bellefonte could be used for a next-generation advanced boiling water reactor — three of which are now running in Japan and Taiwan.

Last week, TVA applied for DOE matching funds with nuclear vendors General Electric and Toshiba, engineers Bechtel Corp., and fuel producers U.S. Enrichment Corp. to complete the cost analysis for the Bellefonte conversion. The study would cost about $4 million.

Monday, TVA joined Duke Energy and others in another consortium called NuStart Energy seeking cost-sharing from DOE on a larger $400 million study that would review licensing and design requirements for two different advanced reactors — one from GE and a second from Westinghouse.

Bellefonte was not the test site for the second application, in which TVA offered only non-in-kind services.

The two proposals will compete with at least one other proposal from a group led by Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. in what DOE is calling its Nuclear Power 2010 initiative to get a next generation nuclear plant on line by that date. DOE is taking proposals through year's end.

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Bellefonte Nuclear Plant sits unfinished in Scottsboro, Ala.
The Associated Press
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Bellefonte Nuclear Plant sits unfinished in Scottsboro, Ala.

The DOE program is "basically aimed at moving the ball forward through development, licensing, construction and demonstration of new technologies," DOE spokesman Joe Davis said.

"We will look at them on the merits and decide which one we will put money behind," he said.

Stephen Smith, executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called TVA's pursuit of nuclear power a mistake for ratepayers and the environment.

"I am so disappointed that TVA is continuing to chase after this elusive dream," he said.

Baxter said TVA continues to look for options for Bellefonte.

"It is a ready site," he said. "It already has infrastructure there. It has a large switchyard and transmission capabilities. And not unimportantly there is a community that understands and welcomes nuclear power."