New Reactor May Revive Nuke Energy

 

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- May 07 - Daily Breeze

America's nuclear energy program is being revived at the site of one of its worst accidents.

All signs from regulators and operators point to a startup within days of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Unit 1 reactor at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala., culminating a five- year, $1.8 billion restoration.

Mothballed since 1985, TVA's oldest reactor was the scene of a major fire sparked by a candle in 1975. It has been reborn as a modern 1,200-megawatt atomic generator capable of lighting 650,000 homes.

The reactor is the last of three Browns Ferry units designed in the 1960s, run in the 1970s, idled in the 1980s and revived since the 1990s. It will be this country's first "new" nuclear generator of the 21st century -- the 104th active commercial reactor.

Though no one has applied to build a new nuclear plant in the U.S. since the 1970s, several are now being planned.

"You could almost point to Browns Ferry Unit 1 as really the beginning of nuclear energy's rejuvenation in the United States," said Scott Peterson, vice president of the industry's Nuclear Energy Institute.

Growing demand for electricity and concern over global climate change are propelling this nuclear renaissance. The Department of Energy estimates 50 new reactors will be needed by 2030 to keep pace. Tighter controls on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants are looming and will be expensive.

"If you care about global warming and clean air, it is hard not to be for nuclear power," said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., co-chairman of the TVA congressional caucus.

Dealing with the radioactive waste accumulating at plant sites -- an industry volume that Peterson says would cover a football field 7 feet deep -- remains a problem. Political hurdles remain on burying it in Nevada. Technical hurdles surround proposals to reprocess it like the French.

Still, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to receive fast- track construction and operating license applications for 28 standard design reactors at 19 sites by 2009, most in the energy- hungry Southeast and Southwest.

Among the interested utilities is a group of power companies and equipment manufacturers called NuStart Energy Development LLC. The consortium, which includes TVA, is looking to build two reactors at TVA's unfinished Bellefonte plant site in Hollywood, Ala.

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