SPRING CITY, Tenn. – To curb carbon emissions and global temperatures, a former EPA administrator under President George W. Bush said today that adding more reactors like the one TVA is building at its Watts Bar Nuclear Plant here are critical to America’s future.
Christine Whitman, the former New Jersey governor who headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003, said global warming from carbon emissions and other air pollutants from coal power plants are a national security concern and nuclear power can play a role in replacing such generation without harmful emissions.
“To think what we are putting into the atmosphere and the way we are changing the land isn’t having an impact and exacerbating the natural trend toward global warming to a point where nature can’t absorb it, I think, is naive,” Whitman said. “You have 97 percent of scientists saying that the climate is changing and better than 50 percent of the American people saying they also believe the climate is changing based upon what they see around them with the floods, droughts and storms. I think they would like to see some action.”
Whitman, who toured the Unit 2 construction at Watts Bar here today, called TVA’s work toward finishing the plant “impressive” and said she hopes American utilities will continue to use nuclear power as part of the country’s energy mix.
Mike Skaggs, a senior vice president at TVA who is heading the completion of Watts Bar Unit 2, said the unit is now 98 percent complete and TVA will begin hot functional testing of plant equipment next month. Pending approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, TVA should load nuclear fuel and start up the reactor by the end of the year.