The Tennessee Valley Authority has yet to officially decide to build the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama, but the federal utility has awarded a contract to a Canadian company for the biggest remaining pieces of equipment needed to complete the reactor.
Babcock and Wilcox Canada Ltd., an affiliate of Babcock and Wilcox Nuclear Energy Inc., announced last week it will design and manufacture two 500-ton steam generators for TVA’s Unit 1 reactor at Bellefonte.
Gary Morgan, an anti-nuclear activist who lives near Bellefonte in Scottsboro, Ala., charged Tuesday that the contract exceeds the authorization given by TVA’s board of directors to conduct engineering and feasibility studies before deciding whether to build the unit.
“TVA is putting the cart before the horse and this contract clearly goes beyond what the board authorized in August for Bellefonte,” said Morgan, a member of the Bellefonte Efficiency and Sustainability Team, which is opposed to the Bellefonte plant.
“This construction project also does not support U.S. jobs for our citizens in a time of increasing unemployment,” Morgan added.
But TVA officials insist the initial contract for long-lead items such as fabricating the steam generators is a key part of the $248 million budgeted for Bellefonte in the current fiscal year.
“All the contracts that we have signed or are negotiating for equipment at Bellefonte have language for termination if the decision is made not to complete the plant,” TVA spokesman Terry Johnson said.
“But if we are going to be prepared to have the unit come on line in the 2018 to 2020 timeline we now envision, we need to proceed with contracting for equipment that will take several years to design and build.”
Johnson said the steam generator contracts were competitively bid among multiple supply firms, but he declined to reveal the purchase price or terms of the contract.
TVA removed the steam generators from Bellefonte in 2005 when the utility scrapped plans to finish the plant, which was begun in 1974 and halted in 1988.
The steam generators are designed to produce superheated steam to be transported to the turbines for electricity generation.
Morgan said he has asked TVA’s Inspector General to see if the B&W contract exceeds the board authority granted in the fiscal 2011 budget plan adopted in August.
For all the talk about the next generation of nuclear power, most of what is being built is just finishing the last generation of plants
TVA has debated and examined Bellefonte for decades. The board decision in August was clearly one to take the next step toward finishing a unit that was once nearly 90 percent complete. That's logical, sustainable and an efficient use of resources to generate power without carbon emissions -- something environmentalists should embrace, not criticize.
Since when does "design, study and engineer" equal construction of major components? Regardless of what the TVA's media person may rationalize the TVA Board has not approved the construction of the plant. The steam generators are a major plant component.
The plant has been under construction for over 30 years, what is a 6 month wait prior to a final official approval?
Once an organization fails to follow establish proceedures and protocols this opens the door to accidents and calamity. The licensing and approval process of nuclear plants are established for a purpose, the protection of the public. The circumvention of the approval process begins the cascading of events which increase the risk of an accident.
Besides, the construction of this major component clearly violates the approval process critical to the safety of nuclear reactors. This construction violates the authority authorized by the TVA Board.
Has the TVA Board now been relegated to a position of in-consequence behind the decisions of TVA's executives or worse, is TVA Board approval merely a rubber stamp process for TVA's executives?
As a member of the public and a concerned citizen I hope and pray the TVA Board corrects this misapplication of power on the part of TVA executives.
Reply to TeaParty330 concerning carbon emissions.
The TVA and the nuclear lobby would like you to believe there are no carbon emissions. At the reactor site there are no carbon emissions (There are other radioactive contaminants, such as tritium.) but that does not include the nuclear industry's dirty little secret, THE NUCLEAR FUELS PROCESS. A very high polluter and killer of workers. Thousands have been sickened are dying and dead from the nuclear fuels production cycle.
Does the Tea Party support socialism? The nuclear industry can not exist without government subsidies to fund nuclear power projects. Does the Tea Party support shipping our nation's jobs to Canada?
B&W Canada is a subsidiary of a U.S. company and the installation work will be done entirely within the Tennessee Valley. Construction of Bellefonte should create more than 3,000 construction jobs. TVA isn't taking any federal loan guarantees for this project. This is one shovel ready project that doesn't need federal subsidies.
Being fiscally responsible includes buying equipment that is actually needed for a project. This project is under review because it has many faults (including being built on a fault line). I'm concerned that the purchase of steam generators will be a waste. I am also concerned that temporary construction jobs were mentioned in these comments as being good for the Tennessee Valley. We need real, long lasting jobs, the kind of jobs that insulating buildings and constructing energy efficient homes (generating their own power) would bring! Smart grid technology provides a lot of solutions that the aging nuclear giant can never accomplish.
TeaParty330you say "construction of Bellefonte should create more than 3,000 construction jobs." It will not, this is another false comment being made by the TVA and nuclear mouthpieces. There will be very few local citizens employed. There will be approximately 1200 security cleared contractors which are currently working on the Watts Bar Nuclear plant between Chattanooga and Knoxville that will move to the Scottsboro area to work on Bellefonte, if the TVA Board approves construction of the nuclear plant.
Loan Guarantees, yes the TVA does take Department of Energy Grants. None have been approved for Bellefonte because the TVA Board has not approved the project. The TVA can not afford any more debt as they are near their Congressional mandated $30 billion cap at this time. No nuclear plant can be built in the United States without Department of Energy subsidies due to the expense of nuclear reactors. You will pay for it TeaParty330 whether you admit it or not.
Here is another fact. The TVA cannibalized, stripped Bellefonte in 2006 of its steam generators and accessories, sold the parts for $49 million, now the cost will be over $300 million with no authority to purchase the generators since there has been no approval from the TVA Board to construct the plant. Something is broken within the TVA. This is massive waste and abuse, not to mention an abuse of power. It is time for drastic executive level changes at the TVA.
If the TVA was a private corporation the stockholders would be demanding the resignation/firing of executives or the Board would be replaced. Only in the Federal Government may such abuse and waste occur! Why should we as ratepayers and taxpayers accept this $250 million plus dollar waste and abuse? It is atrocious!
It is hard to pick a starting place to criticize TVA because there are so many places to begin.
The Bellefonte fiasco has now multiplied so many times that it and other false starts of nuclear power plants by TVA must be the laughingstock of other nuclear providers. If they have been looking for leadership from the misguided TVA they have taken the wrong fork in the road.
Sadly, this is costing ratepayers far too much more; the interest on $25 billion in bonds is staggering.
There is another point here; so far as I know, TVA is not exempt from the federal Antideficiency Act which mandates that commitments of funds before their approval is prohibited.
One more point; TVA is not supposed to receive grants or any other source of funds except from ratepayers, taxpayers are not involved here because TVA receives no federal appropriations, a big mistake in not controlling TVA.
Have you ever heard of a chicken running around with his head cut off? I’ve seen it and it is not a pretty sight. You know what the analogy is.
P.S. – I’ve been waiting for an answer from TVA FOIA about the Green Power Switch for 122 days; doesn’t sound too bad compared with the 1974 start of Bellefonte.
Ernest Norsworthy http://norsworthyopinion.com
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