Abandoned reactors may be completed

By Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press  |  August 28, 2008

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The Tennessee Valley Authority, faced with growing electricity demand and rising coal costs, asked regulators yesterday to renew construction permits for two unfinished nuclear reactors it virtually abandoned 20 years ago.

The Knoxville-based TVA, among the first to join a recent push to build new reactors around the country, hasn't decided whether it will complete the Unit 1 and 2 reactors at the Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala. But it has budgeted $10 million this year to study what would be involved.

The request is complicated by another project TVA is considering for the same site - two additional reactors for which TVA has applied, for a combined construction and operating license with partner NuStart Energy Development LLC.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Ken Clark said TVA's environmental reviews for the new reactors assumed they would use cooling towers and other infrastructure built for the older unfinished reactors but didn't account for the finishing of the older reactors.

Now, the NRC staff will have to decide if the old construction permits for Units 1 and 2 can be reactivated or if new permits will be required, Clark said.

TVA has made no final decision on whether to build any of the four reactors.

TVA Chief Operating Officer William R. McCollum Jr. said yesterday that the federal utility will need to add a major new power plant or reactor every five to seven years to meet growing demand. TVA supplies electricity to 8.8 million consumers in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

McCollum said TVA will be looking for the "best and most cost-effective methods." TVA gets about 60 percent of its power from coal-fired power plants.

Last week, TVA adopted a 20 percent rate increase - the largest in 34 years - due mainly to rising coal and natural gas prices.

"As we look for the best choice for new baseload generation we recognize that nuclear fuel costs are much more stable over the long term," McCollum said in a statement.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, TVA planned to build a 17-reactor system - one of the largest nuclear programs in the country. But most were scrapped because of nuclear safety concerns, rising construction costs, and falling electricity demand.