TVA expected to apply for new reactors

TVA expected to apply for new reactors

	Published : Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:06 By : Agencies Print this Story

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Tennessee Valley Authority is expected to file an application, perhaps as early as Tuesday, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two new nuclear power reactors at a site in Alabama.

The TVA, the nation's largest public power provider, plans to build the reactors at the site of the partially completed and then mothballed Bellefonte nuclear power station near Scottsboro, Ala. The TVA, in conjunction with an industry consortium called NuStart, has been working on the proposal for two years.

The application will be the second filed with the NRC for new nuclear power plants in just over a month. NRG Energy Inc. submitted an application on Sept. 25 to build and operate two new reactor units at its Bay City, Texas, power plant site.

Prior to the NRG application, there had not been an application for a new nuclear power plant in the United States since before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. The NRC says it expects as many as 21 applications for 30 reactors over the next couple of years.

Officials at TVA, the Energy Department and NuStart scheduled a press conference for Tuesday afternoon to 'tout' TVA's application plans, according to an Energy Department advisory.

TVA spokesman John Moulton said Monday evening he could not confirm that the submission would be made Tuesday. But he said the TVA board of directors has approved submitting a combined construction and operating license application, and said TVA had said it would do so before the end of the month.

'We have been told to expect a second application tomorrow,' NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner said Monday evening, although he declined to give the name of the applicant or other details.

The rush to build reflects a renaissance in nuclear power in recent years as plant owners have been able to reduce operating costs, while the costs of producing electricity from both coal and natural gas have risen. The nuclear industry also has capitalized on the argument that nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, a problem especially for coal-burning power plants that release large amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

The TVA application will be the first involving construction of a Westinghouse AP1000 advanced reactor, made by Westinghouse Electric Co., which is owned by Japan's Toshiba Corp. The two reactors being planned by NRG Energy are boiling water reactors made by General Electric Co.

Constellation Energy, based in Baltimore, also has been pushing ahead with plans to build a new nuclear power plant. It has submitted a partial application with the NRC for a new reactor, to be built by France's Areva Group, at the site of its existing Calvert Cliffs reactor on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

The TVA operates six nuclear reactors. It restarted its Browns Ferry Unit 1 reactor in Alabama last summer after a lengthy shutdown. In 1996 it began operating Unit 1 at Watts Bar in Tennessee, the last new nuclear reactor to come on line in the United States, although its license application predates the Three Mile Island accident.

The Bellefonte site is the location of two partially completed nuclear reactors that TVA canceled and never finished. While little if any of the old reactors is expected to be used in building the new ones, the site has been characterized as ideal for a new reactor because of the existing power lines and infrastructure.