Archive for the ‘Tennessee’ Category

In an adroit step backwards, the Tennessee Valley Authority has chosen the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s old two-step licensing procedure in a bid to construct the first models of Babcock & Wilcox’s mPower modular reactor.

“TVA spokesman Terry Johnson said the utility is using the two-step licensing approach to allow more flexibility for TVA and the manufacturers of the mPower reactor to change the way the plant is designed and built over the next decade,” says this report by Dave Flessner in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “Under the single combined operating license, the NRC must pre-approve the design and construction method for any new plant before any building work begins.”
 
The two-step process also suggests that the TVA may be able to move the application more quickly through the NRC, since the initial construction license will be a simpler affair. The NRC implemented the one-step construction-and-operating licensing process in 1992 after environmental groups bankrupted several utilities by opposing opening of the reactor after the utility had invested billions of dollars in building it. The COL allows the utility to obtain an operating license before breaking ground – although the process has never been tested and opposition groups are bound to drag it through the courts anyway.
 
Anti-nuclear advocates are already lining up to criticize the small modular reactors, which many believe represents the future of the nuclear industry. "We are highly skeptical that these modular designs are going to deliver as promised," Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told the Times Free Press. "There is a whole set of issues that are likely to be raised about these plants so TVA, the NRC and the contractors should expect a real fight."  Who would have guessed?
 
Nonetheless, the TVA effort holds the promise that SMRs may soon move off the drawing boards. TVA plans to build two of B&W’s 125-megawatt, factory-built reactors on the site of the old Clinch River Breeder Reactor, another promising technology that was halted by the Carter Administration.
 
Industry and utility officials are hopeful that the piecemeal strategy of SMRs will prove easier to manage than full-scale, on-site-constructed 1,500-MW reactors. "Any time you can do a lot of work in a factory environment, you have a lot more control on schedule and costs," said Rick Bonsall, vice president of B&W.

Read more at the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Nuclear energy, traditionally associated with Los Alamos, Idaho National Laboratory and Hanford, Washington, is finding a new center of gravity in southern Appalachia – in the state of Tennessee.
 
Tennessee has three big things going for it: 
 
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the eastern outpost of the Manhattan Project, which is reviving its nuclear research and talking about powering the entire facility with one of those new mini-reactors. (Ironically, Oak Ridge now draws its electricity from the Kingston Coal Plant, the one that had the huge toxic sludge spill in 2008.) 
- The Tennessee Valley Authority, which, with several old licenses left over from the 1970s, is the only utility in the country building new reactors.
- Senator Lamar Alexander, who has grasped former Senator Pete Domenici’s title as “Mr. Nuclear” and is urging the country to build 100 new reactors in the next 20 years.
 
Tennessee’s leading role in the Nuclear Renaissance was reinforced this week with the grand opening of Alstom’s $300-million turbine factory that is primed to sell to new American reactors.
 
“The US fleet of nuclear plants is aging and is clearly the biggest market in the world,” said Alstom Power President Philippe Joubert, who flew in for this week’s inauguration ceremonies. “Besides new nuclear plants, the manufacturing unit will also refurbish existing steam turbines used by nuclear power plants so they can extend their operating licenses for 15 or 20 years.”
 
The French company is obviously planning big things in the American market. The Chattanooga plant is expected to bring $42 million in new business to the area and employ 350 workers. Its adjacent boiler business already employs 500.
 
In addition to jumping into jumping into the lead of the nuclear revival, Tennessee will also be the American home of the Nissan Leaf, scheduled to start production in Smyrna next year. The 100 percent electric vehicle will soon be pumping up demand for more nuclear electricity.
 
So why does everybody talk about California as the proving ground for the new energy economy?

Read more at The Hindu Business Line