[ RadSafe ] [Nuclear News] TVA OKs second Watts Bar nuclear reactor

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

TVA OKs second Watts Bar nuclear reactor 
Foes of Nuclear Expansion Find Few Allies
Entergy Nuclear inks parts deal for potential Miss. plant
Kudankulam may get four more nuclear plants 
French FM says Libya nuclear deal just a 'hypothesis' 
---------------------------------------------------

TVA OKs second Watts Bar nuclear reactor 

KNOXVILLE, TN. (AP) Aug 1 - The Tennessee Valley Authority's board of 
directors voted unanimously Wednesday to begin a five-year plan to 
finish a second nuclear reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant on the 
Tennessee River. 
 
The plant, about 50 miles south of Knoxville at Spring City, was the 
last new nuclear plant to come on line in the United States when it 
fired up one of its two planned reactors in 1996.

The second reactor was mothballed in mid-construction in 1985 when 
TVA shut down its entire nuclear program over safety concerns.

The plan to finish it is expected to cost about $2.5 billion, likely 
funded by the public utility's revenues and adding debt. It was 
approved after a $20 million internal study on the feasibility of 
finishing the reactor determined it was already about 60 percent 
complete.

TVA is the nation's largest public utility, providing wholesale 
electricity through 158 distributors to about 8.7 million consumers 
and directly to several dozen large manufacturers in Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

The plan has faced opposition from anti-nuclear advocates and 
environmentalists, who asked for a year's delay for further study.

Bill Sansom, chairman of the eight-member TVA board, said that future 
forecasts for power requirements in the utility's booming coverage 
area could require more nuclear projects, as well as increased 
conservation.

"This isn't 'either/or' as it comes to conservation," he said. "We 
need this and all the conservation you can bring on."

Watts Bar has a unique role as the only commercial reactor in the 
country that also works for the military - making tritium for nuclear 
weapons for the Department of Energy since 2003. While Watts Bar Unit 
2 is not expected to make tritium, security concerns remain for the 
site, especially during construction involving thousands of workers.

"There are a lot of people that will be in this fight," said Ann 
Harris, a former TVA whistleblower at Watts Bar and now an activist 
with the Sierra Club. "The anti-nuclears. The safety advocates. The 
people who work on conservation."

Opposition to Watts Bar Unit 1 was fierce. Whistleblower complaints 
forced large amounts of cabling and piping to be replaced, delaying 
the reactor and driving the cost to $7 billion. Protesters blocked 
plant entrances and demonstrators were removed from TVA board 
meetings.

"This time people will have a lot more knowledge," Harris said. 
"There are lots of opportunities to ask for public hearings, (to 
seek) injunctions and media that didn't exist before."

Watts Bar Unit 2 has a construction permit from the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission that will have to be renewed in 2010. Then TVA 
will have to secure an operating license.
---------------

Foes of Nuclear Expansion Find Few Allies

(Washington Post) Aug 1 - In a Maryland county where politicians roll 
out tax breaks for nuclear power expansion and residents feel so good 
about their existing plant that some fish next to the place, Bob 
Boxwell knows he's fighting an uphill battle.

The longtime environmentalist is among a tiny group of Calvert County 
residents known to be making a concerted effort to stop a proposed 
reactor at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby. The reactor 
would be Calvert Cliffs' third and could become the first project of 
its kind in the United States in about 30 years, underscoring the 
nation's renewed interest in nuclear power.
  
In Calvert, only a handful of residents are part of a small e-mail 
distribution list of people opposed to the expansion, according to 
Boxwell. Three months ago, when a half-dozen opponents of plant 
expansion met in Annapolis, only two were from Calvert, including 
Boxwell.

Their numbers, of course, could swell if the prospect of a new 
reactor increases. Three weeks ago, Constellation Energy Group of 
Baltimore filed a partial application with the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, asking it to review environmental plans for a 1,600-
megawatt reactor that could cost $4 billion.

As of now, the limited number of expansion opponents says a lot about 
the strength of supporters. A public meeting on the project is 
scheduled for Aug. 14 at a Holiday Inn Select in Solomons.

"We will be there, and absolutely we support the expansion," said 
Danita Boonchaisri, a marketing and communications specialist at the 
Calvert County Department of Economic Development.

Wilson H. Parran (D-At Large), president of the Calvert Board of 
County Commissioners, said in an interview yesterday that the plant 
has a sterling safety record. He noted that existing reactors have 
received licenses to operate into the 2030s: "You don't do that if 
you're not safe."

Parran, who plans to speak at the Aug. 14 meeting, said he will 
summarize a letter the five-member commission is expected to write in 
support of the expansion.

All five commission members appear to support the expansion. The 
newest member, Barbara A. Stinnett (D-At Large), predicts unanimous 
endorsement. Nuclear power, she said, could be an answer to global 
warming. "I concern myself with trying to get other, greener ways of 
producing electricity," she said.

Outside of politicians, many residents also support the plant. They 
cite its reputation as a large taxpayer, a safe place to work, even a 
place that offers good fishing just off its banks. This year, Calvert 
Cliffs is expected to pay the county about $16 million in taxes, an 
estimated 8 percent of Calvert's tax revenue.

Attention to those tax dollars is one of Boxwell's concerns.

"I just think they're looking at the economics of it, which is all 
the county has ever looked at it when it comes to this plant," he 
said.

Calvert residents have lulled themselves into a false sense of 
safety, Boxwell said. If the plant expands, he said, Calvert Cliffs 
will have to store more spent fuel, which will render it that much 
more vulnerable to a terrorist attack or a catastrophic accident.

"It would be difficult to get out of this end of the world," said 
Boxwell, who lives in Lusby, about seven miles from the plant. He 
said he'd have only two options: going south, across a bridge to St. 
Mary's County, or heading north, which would take him by the plant.

Others echoed that concern.

Norma Powers pointed out that the bridge heading to St. Mary's is 
only two lanes.

"That's not going to be possible," she said of trying to cross in the 
event of an emergency. "Everyone else is going to be going across the 
bridge."

She said opposition to plant expansion is limited to "little factions 
here and there." But those groups could come together, once word 
spreads, to form a bigger core group to speak out against the plans.

"I would suggest that we could probably get 50 or 60 people 
together," Powers said.
-----------------

Entergy Nuclear inks parts deal for potential Miss. plant

(The Clarion-Ledger) Aug 1 - Entergy Nuclear has signed a development 
agreement with a company for nuclear reactor components for a 
potential plant, which could be located in Mississippi.

Entergy Nuclear, through NuStart Energy Development LLC, is on target 
to submit a combined construction and operating license application 
to build a second plant at its Grand Gulf nuclear site in Mississippi 
by the end of 2007. The company also is targeting a mid-2008 
submittal of a combined construction and operating license 
application for its River Bend site in Louisiana,

The order with GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy would provide timely 
delivery of critical parts should Entergy receive federal approval 
and decide to build a nuclear unit, according to a news release.

While Entergy has not made a decision to build a nuclear unit, the 
company is moving forward systematically to position itself so that 
the option for a new nuclear unit remains available in the 2017 time 
frame.

Potential sites for a new plant each has a GEH-designed reactor. The 
Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, located in Port Gibson, about 25 miles 
south of Vicksburg, Miss., has a 1,266-megawatt boiling water reactor 
that entered service in 1985. The River Bend Station in St. 
Francisville, northwest of Baton Rouge, has a 978-megawatt boiling 
water reactor that began commercial operation in 1986.
------------------

Kudankulam may get four more nuclear plants 

Negotiations in progress; fuel re-processing rights secured  

Chennai, (Hindu Business Line) Aug 1 The next four nuclear reactors 
from Russia could well be located in Kudankulam itself, where 
currently two reactors of 1,000 MW each are being put up. "Kudankulam 
can take at least four more," Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic 
Energy Commission, told Business Line on Wednesday.

"Of course. It is easy to install similar reactors in one place," he 
said, asked if the nuclear power establishment in India would prefer 
Kudankulam as base. He said that negotiations were in progress with 
the Russians for the new reactors.

Dr Kakodkar stressed that the recently-concluded `123 Agreement´ with 
the United States was "an additionality" and that the domestic 3-
stage programme would continue as planned.

"We have started a new (Uranium) mine in Bandhuharang (in Jharkhand). 
We are opening new mines in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya. We are 
actually talking about an accelerated exploration programme," Dr 
Kakodkar said, stressing that he was happy with the conclusion of the 
agreement with the US in as much as it did not affect the domestic 
nuclear programme in any way.

Re-processing unit 

The 123 Agreement requires India to build a new spent fuel re-
processing facility that would be put under international safeguards. 
All the imported fuel would be re-processed here after use. 

Asked when the facility would come up, Dr Kakodkar said that it could 
be built when required. 

The important point is to get the re-processing rights upfront, which 
has been secured.

Dr Kakodkar said that the agreement also opened up possibilities of 
exports of nuclear power-related products from India (India today 
exports some quantities of heavy water).

He said that India was exporting any incidental surplus, but 
"tomorrow we can also think of setting up capacities for exports." 

He said that India would "build a strategic fuel reserve from imports 
from several countries."
-----------------

French FM says Libya nuclear deal just a 'hypothesis' 

PARIS (AFP) Aug 1 - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said 
Tuesday that a French proposal to build a nuclear reactor in Libya, 
which has drawn official protests from Germany, was still only at the 
planning stage. 
 
"There have been complaints, in particular because we raised the 
hypothesis, which is far from being confirmed" of supplying a nuclear 
reactor to Libya, Kouchner told a parliamentary foreign affairs 
committee.

He said the document signed during President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit 
to Libya last week was a simple "memorandum of understanding, a 
possible framework" for a "possible nuclear reactor."

"Remember that this is for desalinating sea water, not for making 
war, and that it would be completely controlled" by the UN atomic 
watchdog the IAEA, "if it goes ahead, and it is not certain that it 
will."

"There has been no contact between the company that could do this and 
Libya, so it is just a prospect," Kouchner said.

A memorandum on building the reactor was signed as Sarkozy held talks 
with Libyan leader Kadhafi, a day after Tripoli freed six foreign 
medics. France played a key role, along with EU officials, in 
securing their release.

German officials have blasted the deal as "reckless" and a potential 
blow to nuclear non-proliferation efforts as well as the European 
Union's aim to pursue better coordinated foreign policy.

Kouchner said he had discussed the situation Monday with his German 
counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

"Some decisions do not make everyone happy," he added.

The French-Libyan deal has also been attacked by the left-wing and 
green opposition in France as a potential proliferation risk.

But an official with France's Atomic Energy Commission insisted that 
international safeguards imposed after Libya scrapped its military 
nuclear programme in 2003 would prevent any proliferation.

-----------------------------------------
Sander C. Perle
President
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at cox.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/