Proposed TVA Nuclear Plant Comes With Exorbitant Price Tag

The Tennessee Valley Authority is not flinching from its goal of building the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama, despite a projection that the facility could cost more to build than all three of agency’s current nuclear generating stations.

TVA sells electricity to Bristol Tennessee Essential Services and Bristol Virginia Utilities, and increased costs could filter down to customers.

“It’s a little too early to say what kind of impact increased costs would have on customers,” TVA spokesman John Moulton said Friday. “We’ve first got to go through the licensing process, and that will take us up to 2011. At that point we’d consider whether we actually want to go forward and if that’s the location where we want to build.”

Using estimates from the nuclear energy industry, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that the two pressurized water reactors planned for the site near Scottsboro, Ala., range from $9.8 billion to $17.5 billion. That’s compared to estimates of $6.4 billion to $7.1 billion a year ago.

But TVA officials say the payoff is worth the investment and nuclear power has its advantages, particularly over coal-fired power plants facing tougher air pollution standards. 

“Everybody’s costs are going up,” TVA President Tom Kilgore said. “But it’s still economical. If you take into account the fact that we also see carbon [pollution] costs in some form, we think it’s very prudent to keep looking at our next nuclear options.”

TVA is working with a consortium of utilities and engineering companies known as NuStart Energy LLC on the reactor construction and operating license at Bellefonte.

Kilgore said TVA ultimately could build the plant itself or share ownership with other companies. The TVA board will likely be asked next year to continue funding the application process, Kilgore said.

Kimberly Scheibe Greene, TVA’s chief financial officer, visited Bristol Va., about two weeks ago and made it clear that nuclear energy was perhaps the most-important piece of the energy-crisis puzzle.

“We need to invest in nuclear power,” Greene said. “The entire country needs to move forward on this. I wish everyone could go and see a nuclear plant. We can’t lobby for them, because we’re a federal entity. But we can try to educate people about the option and benefits – they’re huge.”

Meanwhile, TVA is spending $2.5 billion to complete a second reactor at the Watts Bar station by 2012, and devoting $10 million to study completing two other reactors the agency virtually abandoned at the Bellefonte site 20 years ago.

The Knoxville-based agency said it needs the additional capacity to meet growing demand. TVA services about 8.8 million consumers in Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina. TVA generates about 60 percent of its power from coal, about 30 percent from nuclear and 10 percent from hydroelectric plants. Less than 1 percent comes from renewable sources, such as wind, solar and methane gas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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