TVA plan for Ala. nuclear plant drops to 1 reactor

[bananas]

Source: AP

The Tennessee Valley Authority, faced with falling electric sales and rising costs from cleaning up a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee, on Friday trimmed plans for a potential four-unit nuclear plant in northeast Alabama to one reactor.

The nation's largest public utility, which two years ago had positioned itself as a leader in this country's so-called "nuclear renaissance," said it would prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement to consider a single reactor for its unfinished Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala.

That single unit might be one of the two advanced Westinghouse AP1000 reactors for which TVA has already applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a combined construction and operating license. Or it might be one of the two incomplete reactors that have been mothballed at the site since 1988.

A third option would be to not build anything, though TVA officials continue to see nuclear in the agency's future particularly because of tougher clean-air standards on power generators.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080702656.html

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We know we have much better solutions than nuclear:

- McKinsey must-read: U.S. can meet entire 2020 emissions target with efficiency and cogeneration while lowering the nation’s energy bill $700 billion!

- If Obama stops dirty coal, as he must, what will replace it?