This file photo shows the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Athens, Ala.

ATHENS, Ala. - Tennessee Valley Authority executives are showing off the utility's oldest nuclear plant as a safe facility. The utility says there's no reason to worry about a repeat of the radiation emergency in Japan at any of its reactors.

TVA is has a media tour today at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens, Ala.

It uses a boiling water reactor design similar to reactors in Japan that have malfunctioned since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and devastating tsunami that followed. TVA executives plan to build more nuclear plants and contend the utility's six existing reactors in Tennessee and Alabama all would withstand what happened in Japan.

An industry watchdog group described that claim as cheap talk and said the nuclear industry is in damage control mode.