TVA files for license to build 2 reactors

WASHINGTON – The Tennessee Valley Authority filed an application Tuesday for a license to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at a site in northern Alabama where it mothballed two reactor projects nearly two decades ago after investing billions of dollars.

The filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made in conjunction with an industrial consortium called NuStart, was the second application for a new commercial reactor in just over a month and is expected to usher in more applications.

Bill McCollum, TVA’s chief operating officer, said it would be up to the TVA board to decide whether to proceed with construction, but applying for a license as part of the NuStart consortium “is a cost effective way to preserve TVA’s nuclear power option.”

The application is the first to the NRC for construction of a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, which would be built at TVA’s Bellefonte site near Hollywood, Ala., where it halted construction on a pair of reactors in 1988 as the tide turned against nuclear power.

But the industry has been in a renaissance in recent years.

The application is the first made under the NuStart consortium, a group of electric power utilities that joined together to test the NRC’s new, more streamlined reactor licensing program.