Powerful additionsThe planned addition of more U.S. nuclear power plants could add hundreds of new jobs in the region* Alstom Power Turbomachines built a $280 million fabrication facility on Riverfront Parkway which began production this month. The 350,000-square-foot plant will eventually employ 350 workers.* Westinghouse Electric Co., built a $21 million training and office facility in the Centre South Riverport. Westinghouse, a division of Toshiba Group, could expand employment at the 65,000-square-foot facility to 230 employees if business grows as expected.* The Unit 2 reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant near Spring City, Tenn., should add more than 500 workers to the plant when it begins power generation in 2012 following a 5-year, $2.5 billion construction program.* At the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Hollywood, Ala., TVA plans to either finish one of the original reactors started at the site or build a next generation reactor. The new plant, which is expected to be completed within the next decade, would require nearly 1,000 employees to operate.
America’s nuclear power renaissance is taking shape along the Tennessee River even before the next generation of nuclear plants is licensed in the United States.
In Chattanooga, two river- front industrial sites are already employing hundreds of workers to build and train for more nuclear power facilities.
Although far smaller than the former Combustion Engineering Corp., from which they derived, a new Alstom fabrication plant along Riverfront Parkway and a Westinghouse Electric Co. training center off Amnicola Highway already have brought more than $300 million of new investment and created more than 300 local jobs.
Earlier this month, Alstom officials dedicated the first phase of a $280 million expansion of their riverfront complex for production of power generating equipment used in atomic reactors.