Bellefonte’s unit 1 reactor – abandoned 90 percent complete 23 years ago and a potential lynchpin in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s ambitions to increase nuclear generation – finally faces a vote on its completion by the TVA board this Thursday.
Delayed following the Fukushima Daiichi crisis in Japan, the vote follows years of evolving TVA plans for the site. They’ve ranged from a license application submitted in 2007 to build two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the plant, to two years of scrapping out parts from its two partially complete reactors, to the current proposal to finish unit 1.
A final supplemental environmental impact statement identified unit 1’s completion as the best option for the site, and TVA President Tom Kilgore has called the construction “the right thing to do” while arguing for new nuclear build in a recent newspaper editorial. A story by the Tennessean newspaper this week didn’t net commitments one way or another from TVA board members, but those interviewed appeared open to restarting construction.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reinstated both reactors’ original construction permits at TVA’s request in 2009. TVA allocated $248 million for engineering work at unit 1 this year. According to TVA, completing the 1,260 megawatt Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactor would cost between $4.5 billion and $5 billion. Roughly $4.6 billion was spent at the site between its creation in 1974 and 1988 when the reactors were abandoned.