NRC training facility to grow in Chattanooga

photo The Osborne Office Park near Eastgate Mall.

The Osborne Office Building is similar to a dozen other Brainerd offices with the insurance, tax and mortgage businesses it houses on three of its six floors.

But on floors two through four behind secured elevators and some windowless offices, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission annually trains more than 2,000 of its nuclear plant inspectors and radiation specialists in simulators that duplicate the various types of American reactors the NRC oversees.

The NRC is expanding its presence in the Osborne building to help add new digital training facilities for the next generation of nuclear power, NRC spokesman Ken Clark said Wednesday.

The federal agency is expanding its 60,000-square-foot lease by another 4,000 square feet to provide additional office and classroom space in the Osborne building.

According to the city building inspection department, P&C Construction Inc. is renovating the fourth floor of the Osborne building to expand the NRC's space under a $292,000 contract.

"We need more office space and this will also help from a security standpoint by giving us all of the fourth floor," Clark said.

Even prior to the lease expansion, access to the NRC's technical training facility in Chattanooga has been highly restricted.

"I've only seen the space once," said Russ Elliott, the principal broker for Luken Holdings, the Chattanooga real estate firm that owns Osborne Enterprises and Stone Fort Land Co. in Chattanooga.

The NRC doesn't have any immediate plans to add more of the reactor control room simulators that are housed in Brainerd to help nuclear inspectors train on both pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor plant designs. The NRC licenses and regulates U.S. utilities which collectively now operate 104 nuclear reactors to generate electricity.

Clark said the regulatory agency expects to eventually add new digital equipment in Chattanooga to help simulate new reactor designs, including the Westinghouse AP1000 design that Georgia Power plans to build in the next seven years at its Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga.

The NRC has operated its technical training center in Chattanooga since 1982, when it took over unused simulators originally built to help train Tennessee Valley Authority reactor operators. The center employs 36 workers and trains from 2,000 to 2,500 NRC inspectors, radiation specialists and others every year, Clark said.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340

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