Watts Bar reactor delayed again

Watts Bar reactor delayed again

TVA project plagued by cost overruns won't be finished until 2015

By Dennis Sherer

Staff Writer

An aerial view of Watts Bar nuclear plant in Spring City, Tenn. The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Thursday that construction of a second reactor at the plant will not be completed until 2015, which will delay completion of the Unit 1 reactor at Bellefonte nuclear plant.

Tennessee Valley Authority's plans to complete an unfinished nuclear reactor near Scottsboro are again on hold as delays and cost overruns continue to plague work at its Watts Bar nuclear plant in Tennessee.

TVA officials announced Thursday that construction of a second reactor at the Watts Bar plant in Spring City that was scheduled to be completed this year will not be finished until 2015. The cost of the project, estimated at $2.5 billion when work began in 2007, has grown to $4.2 billion.

The delay will prevent TVA from beginning work this year to complete the Unit 1 reactor at Bellefonte nuclear plant east of Scottsboro, officials said.

TVA president and CEO Tom Kilgore placed much of the blame for the delays and increased costs at the Watts Bar project on the utility's leadership.

Kilgore said the initial planning in 2007 appeared "aggressive but doable" at that time.

He said restarting Unit 1 at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens in 2007 was completed on time though slightly over budget but may have caused TVA officials to be overly optimistic about Watts Bar 2.

"Our estimates on time and cost were wrong," he said.

"While our intentions were well founded, our execution and progress reviews were not."

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said Thursday's announcement confirms contentions he made in 2007 that the cost estimates for the Watts Bar project were unrealistic.

"There must be accountability for this huge mistake. It's just another chapter in TVA's long history of dramatic delays and nuclear cost overruns," Smith said. "For some reason, TVA keeps getting burned at the nuclear oven but keeps going back. You think they would learn that nuclear is not the way to go."

Smith said he expects the cost overruns to have huge financial implications for TVA rate payers.

The construction delay also could impact the Shoals' economy. The Bellefonte project was expected to create jobs for construction crews based in the Shoals.

Construction at Bellefonte began in 1974. Many Shoals residents worked on the project until work was halted in 1988.

TVA spokesman Duncan Mansfield said TVA will not begin construction at the Bellefonte plant until work at Watts Bar Unit 2 is complete and fuel is loaded into the reactor there. He said TVA works to build only one reactor at a time.

"When TVA attempted to build 17 reactors at seven plants pretty much simultaneously in the '70s, it became clear that trying to build more than one reactor at a time is just too much to do," Mansfield said.

Only six reactors at three of the nuclear plants proposed by TVA came to fruition. Three of the reactors are at Browns Ferry.

Watts Bar has one reactor in operation and Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga has two.

The nuclear plants produce about one-third of the electricity used by TVA customers. Mansfield said Browns Ferry can produce 10 percent of the electrical power in the seven-state TVA region.

"Browns Ferry and the other nuclear plants are a very important part of the TVA system," he said.

Kilgore said nuclear energy remains a cost-effective method for producing electricity. "When Watts Bar Unit 2 comes online, it will produce more than 1,100 megawatts of energy at competitive prices and be another major source of emission-free electricity."

TVA is not alone in increasing the amount of electrical power produced with nuclear energy.

Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy organization for the nuclear industry, said Southern Co. plans to add two reactors at its Vogtle nuclear plant near Augusta, Ga., and Scana Corp., plans to build two reactors to its Virgil C. Summer nuclear plant near Columbia, S.C.

Singer said southern utilities, which have relied on coal to produce the bulk of their electrical power, are turning to nuclear energy to help them meet new clean air guidelines.

"We will see Watts Bar 2, the two reactors in Georgia and two in South Carolina come on line by 2020," Singer said. "Beyond that, we really don't know how many more new reactors might be built.

"Right now, natural gas prices are very low and we're likely to see a lot more natural gas being used to produce electricity. But the natural gas market is subject to price increases and it would not be wise for any utility to begin relying too heavily on natural gas for producing the bulk of its base load of electrical power. It's never a wise idea to place all your eggs in one basket for the type of energy used to produce electricity, including nuclear energy."

Smith said many utilities that had expressed interest in building new reactors in recent years have backed off those plans and now plan to use more natural gas and renewable energy sources to produce electricity.

"Other utilities are turning away from building new reactors, but for some reason TVA continues to doggedly pursue more nuclear," Smith said.

Mansfield said TVA is moving toward other cleaner energy sources for producing electricity, including more solar, wind and natural gas.

The increased reliance on nuclear energy for producing electricity is spurring concerns about the safety of nuclear plants, especially in the wake of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan, where radiation was released into air and water after an earthquake and tsunami struck the plant in 2011.

Singer said nuclear plants in the United States are safer than the Japanese plant and are built to withstand earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and other disasters.

Without going into specifics, Mike Skaggs, TVA's senior vice president for nuclear construction, said Thursday concerns raised by the Fukushima disaster are part of the increased costs of completing construction on Watts Bar Unit 2.

Smith contends TVA should halt its efforts to build new reactors until the final impact of the Fukushima disaster on nuclear power plant regulations in the United States is determined.

He said new regulations for reactors around the world could drive up the cost of completing Watts Bar Unit 2 and Bellefonte Unit 1.

Critics of nuclear power plants contend the facilities pose a danger to human health and the environment. They cite problems at plants throughout the country, including Browns Ferry, that have caught the attention of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The regulatory agency stepped up its inspections at Browns Ferry after a malfunctioning valve was discovered in the emergency cooling system for the Unit 1 reactor in 2010.

The NRC issued a red finding for the stuck valve at Browns Ferry, the most serious of the color-coded system used to label safety problems at nuclear plants. It was only the fifth time NRC has issued a red finding since 2010.

On Wednesday, the NRC announced its chairman will visit San Onofre nuclear power plant in California where its two reactors have been idled because of excessive wear in tubing that carries radioactive water.

The Associated Press reported that traces of radiation have escaped from broken pipes at the California plant, but officials have said it is not a threat to workers or neighbors.

The Watts Bar plant has come under the scrutiny of regulators, including in December when cables were erroneously removed from Unit 1 and in January when workers removed a valve from Unit 2 without following proper guidelines.

Smith said TVA officials should rethink the utility's plans to complete Unit 2 at Watts Bar and Unit 1 at Bellefonte.

"We believe that TVA's dogged pursuit of nuclear power should be questioned given there are less-financially risky energy options available, such as promoting energy efficiency and using more natural gas and wind to produce electricity," he said.

Singer said nuclear energy is safe. He said operators of nuclear power plants are constantly working to ensure the safety of the plants.

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 256-740-5746 or dennis.sherer@TimesDaily.com.