TVA green lights Watts Bar 2
From the Knoxville News Sentinel:
Opponents were outspoken at the hearing:
TVA has an existing construction permit for Watts Bar Unit 2 that expires in 2010, but will have to obtain an operating permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before the reactor can be brought online.
On Wednesday, the federal utility’s board of directors unanimously approved completion of the Unit 2 reactor at the Spring City, Tenn., plant, about 65 miles southwest of Knoxville.Construction at the Watts Bar nuclear generating facility began in 1973. TVA mothballed it's nuclear power program in 1985, and Watts Bar Unit 1 eventually came online in 1996, the last commercial reactor startup in the US until the recent Browns Ferry restart.
The construction effort is expected to last five years and cost $2.49 billion.
Opponents were outspoken at the hearing:
“Nuclear power is not clean, and the idea that you all found no significant impacts on your environmental impact statement is a joke,” said Earth First! activist John Johnson, referring to a federally required environmental study released in June.Here is Stephen Smith's full statement to the TVA board.
Stephen Smith, executive director of Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, asked TVA board members to delay the decision and undergo a more transparent review of the project.
Smith also criticized TVA for basing its cost and scheduling estimates on a $20 million study done in part by Bechtel Power Corp. and other contractors that likely will work on the reactor’s construction.
TVA has an existing construction permit for Watts Bar Unit 2 that expires in 2010, but will have to obtain an operating permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before the reactor can be brought online.
Labels: energy policy, environment, nuclear power
1 Comments:
This is good news for TVA, the region and the environment. Once Watts Bar 2 is up and running, it will help avoid the emission of 8 million tons of Carbon per year for its entire operational lifetime.
I think I should point out that being reflexively anti-nuclear isn't necessarily part of a liberal/progressive political agenda. Click here to see what I'm talking about.
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