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Various news outlets report that Unit 2 of the Watts Bar nuclear power plant, owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), has begun operation. The reactor is rated at 1.15 GW and cost $4.7 billion ($4.09 per watt). Ground was broken on the project in 1973; construction work was suspended from 1985 to 2007.
Watts Bar Unit 1, which began operation in 1996, is one of three plants which manufacture tritium under contract to the U.S. government for use in hydrogen bombs.
Around the United States, 99 other commercial nuclear reactors are in operation and four others are under construction:
[...] Scana Corp./SCE&G's V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3 in South Carolina and Southern Co.'s Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia.
In related news, the TVA is taking bids for its unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station in fabulous Hollywood, Alabama. It has received a bid of $38 million.
coverage:
- VOA News (U.S. government source)
- Fresno Bee
- Chattanooga Times Free Press
- Knoxville News Sentinel
- Bloomberg BNA
- The Hill
- Power Magazine
previously:
US Regulators Issue First Nuclear Plant Operating License Since 1996
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Wednesday October 26 2016, @08:01AM
Yes, in one of the articles I linked I read that the plant was 80% completed (whatever that means) when construction was suspended. Also, I read that it has the same rated power output as Unit 1. Therefore I assume that Unit 2 is very similar to Unit 1, on which construction was also begun in 1973.
Someone wrote in the Wikipedia article about the plant that the design of Unit 2 was changed to meet new safety standards enacted in response to the Fukushima disaster. The cited pages on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site don't actually say that, but they say:
The NRC issued a Mitigation Strategies Order on March 12, 2012, requiring all U.S. nuclear power plants to implement strategies that will allow them to cope without their permanent electrical power sources for an indefinite amount of time[.] These strategies must keep the reactor core and spent fuel cool, as well as protect the thick concrete containment buildings that surround each reactor.
-- http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard/mitigation-strategies.html [nrc.gov]
and
The NRC issued an Order on March 12, 2012, requiring all U.S. nuclear power plants to install water level instrumentation in their spent fuel pools. The instrumentation must remotely report at least three distinct water levels: 1) normal level; 2) low level but still enough to shield workers above the pools from radiation; and 3) a level near the top of the spent fuel rods where more water should be added without delay.
-- http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard/spent-fuel.html [nrc.gov]
This page has an overview of the NRC's response to the Fukushima disaster:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard/priorities.html [nrc.gov]
Unit 1 was completed in 1996 and I wondered whether it was the reactor alluded to in the headline of the previous SoylentNews story, "US Regulators Issue First Nuclear Plant Operating License Since 1996." However I wasn't curious enough to look that up.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:31AM
I found a 2011 CBS News article that said "Watts Bar, in Spring City, Tenn., is the last nuclear plant to be licensed in the U.S. [...]" That would refer to Unit 1. So, in a sens, those two reactors at Watts Bar are the country's newest commercial ones.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fukushima-type-disaster-inevitable-in-us/ [cbsnews.com]