NRC authorizes staff to issue Unit 2 license at Watts Bar

Guests stand beneath a door and around the equipment pit inside the Unit 2 reactor containment area.
Guests stand beneath a door and around the equipment pit inside the Unit 2 reactor containment area.

For the first time in nearly two decades, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to issue an operating license for a new nuclear power plant, pending staff approval of final startup tests.

Thirty-six years after construction began at Watts Bar, NRC commissioners this week voted unanimously to authorize its staff to approve startup at the Unit 2 reactor, once TVA completes final installations, inspections and startup tests.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal utility which has spent more than $6 billion to build and rebuild the Unit 2 reactor at Watts Bar, plans to conduct hot functional tests of plant equipment in June and load nuclear fuel in the new reactor later this summer or fall.

TVA expects to begin power generation at the new reactor by the end of the year.

If approved by the NRC staff, Watts Bar Unit 2 will become the first U.S. commercial reactor to get an operating license since TVA completed the first reactor at Watts Bar in 1996.

"The commission's action was a critical regulatory step necessary to keep Watts Bar Unit 2 on track to become the nation's first new nuclear generation of the 21st century," TVA's Chief Nuclear Officer Joe Grimes said in a statement Wednesday. "The delegation of this authority signifies confidence that NRC inspections show Watts Bar Unit 2 is being built according to rigorous regulatory requirements and industry standards."

Anti-nuclear groups last year challenged the licensing of Watts Bar, claiming that equipment in the plant was too susceptible to earthquakes and floods and that additonal reactors should not be added to the 99 U.S. reactors now in operation until the Department of Energy meets its legal obligation to find a permanent repository for radioactive wastes.

But the NRC rejected those claims.

Louis Zeller, executive director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, said anti-nuclear activists continue to question the economics of nuclear power, in addition to their environmental concerns over radioactive wastes.

"Our campaign moves into a different arena," Zeller said Wednesday. "Watts Bar is still a dinosaur of the 20th century that never should have been completed and the next battle will be over economics. We'll see how much more money TVA wants to throw down this rat hole."

But once completed, nuclear plants are among TVA's cheapest source of power from an operating cost standpoint, according to TVA.

The utility had to increase the budget for the completion of Unit 2 three years ago when the original 5-year, $2.5 billion completion project proved inadquate. But TVA remains on schedule and within budget for its revised $4.2 billion completion plan.

The NRC's "Staff Requirements Memorandum" adopted Tuesday delegates authority to plant inspectors and the NRC regional office in Atlanta to issue an operating license for TVA to load nuclear fuel and begin power production at Watts Bar Unit 2. TVA, which once employed more than 3,200 workers at Unit 2, is reducing its construction workforce and is moving toward getting the plant ready for power testing and generation.

"We have a responsibility to complete Watts Bar Unit 2 the right way -- safely and with quality -- and that's what we're doing," said Mike Skaggs, TVA's vice president in charge of Watts Bar operations and construction. "The Watts Bar team has made tremendous progress getting us to this point and is focused on the work and challenges ahead to successfully complete, test, and license Unit 2 and to integrate the unit into TVA's nuclear fleet."

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@times freepress.com or at 423-757-6340.

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