2009 August 08 « nuclear-news

TVA reduces plans for Alabama nuclear plant to 1 reactor, instead of the 4 originally planned

TVA reduces plans for Alabama nuclear plant to one reactor instead of the 4 originally planned
by Duncan Mansfield NOXVILLE, Tenn. 7 August 09 — The Tennessee Valley Authority, faced with falling electric sales and rising costs from cleaning up a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee, on Friday trimmed plans for a potential four-unit nuclear plant in northeast Alabama to one reactor.

The nation’s largest public utility, which two years ago had positioned itself as a leader in this country’s so-called “nuclear renaissance,” said it would prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement to consider a single reactor for its unfinished Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala.

That single unit might be one of the two advanced Westinghouse AP1000 reactors for which TVA has already applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a combined construction and operating license. Or it might be one of the two incomplete reactors that have been mothballed at the site since 1988……………

….TVA had plans in the 1960s and 1970s for as many as 17 reactors, but scrapped most of them because of cost and lack of power demand.

TVA reduces plans for Alabama nuclear plant to 1 reactor, instead of the 4 originally planned

August 8, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Overcoming Nuclear Power’s Biggest Hurdle

Nuclear Power’s biggest hurdle
Strategy and Business 4 August 09 Nuclear power supporters had long hoped that the solution to the nuclear waste problem could be found in a storage facility hollowed out of Yucca Mountain, deep in the Nevada desert roughly 80 miles north of Las Vegas.

But questions about Yucca’s long-term ability to keep radioactivity from leeching into groundwater energized nuclear opponents, as well as nearby residents and Nevada political leaders.

Soon after taking office, President Obama defunded the project.Pending another solution, the roughly 60,000 tons of nuclear fuel waste currently in the U.S. is stored on-site at nuclear plants, either in subsurface canisters or in secure “ponds” filled with boric acid.

If this approach continues much longer, it could cost Washington a lot of money: Utilities have successfully sued the federal government for failing to provide a permanent storage solution after they ponied up roughly US$30 billion in fees paid over several years to fund the Yucca project.

Indeed, untangling the nuclear waste problem may be more a matter of economics than of location.

August 8, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, radioactive, uranium, wastes | Leave a comment