TVA to look into private financing for Browns Ferry

TVA to look into private financing for Browns Ferry

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Tennessee Valley Authority directors will meet Wednesday to examine using private financing to restart an idled north Alabama nuclear reactor, utility chairman Glenn McCullough said.

TVA's board approved a $1.8 billion restart of the Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in May. The Browns Ferry plant near :Ala., has two other operating reactors, both restarted in the 1990s.

"The board would prefer to identify a private sector, IJ\8kes good financing arrangement for Browns Ferry that sense.· McCullough told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. "We're looking at all our options."

Wednesday's meeting, in Knoxville, is with Charles Trabandt, vice president of Boston-based Charles River Associates, which has surveyed the private sector to gauge interest in investing in a restart of the 29-year-old Browns Ferry reactor. It will not be a regular board meeting.

Unit 1 has been idle since 1985, after the TVA shut down all its nuclear reactors because of safety concerns. The utility restarted Unit 2 in May 1991 and Unit 3 in November 1995 following extensive overhauls.

Challenges facing the utility include removing more than 200 miles of electrical conduit and cables, refurbishing the reactor and replacing cooling pipes throughout the unit.

TVA is hoping to ease concerns from the Bush administration's budget office on how the federal utility will return the reactor to service without adding to its $25 billion debt, which is more than three times the agency's annual revenues.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott introduced a bill Friday to require TVA to get approval from lawmakers and the White House Office of Management and Budget before borrowing money.

McCullough, a Mississippian was backed by Lott, said he was not aware of Lott's proposal, but that the utility is "attentive to the issues that Sen. Lott has raised." TVA expects to be held accountable, he said.

The Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy praised Lott's proposal in a statement Tuesday, saying "it is reckless for TVA to operate outside the oversight and control of any institution."

Lott's proposal was criticized by U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., who said he does not support tying "the hands of TVA management" when the country needs more power.

"The Lott bill came out of nowhere and that's exactly where it should go," he said.

David Smith, TVA's chief financial officer, said financing the restart with internally generated funds would limit resources for pollution control and debt payment.

TVA, a self-financing agency created in 1933 as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to improve the economy of the Tennessee Valley, provides electricity to about 8 million people in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.