KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority is in fast-paced negotiations to build advanced small modular reactors at the unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant in Alabama, interim CEO Mike Skaggs said at a nuclear industry conference Wednesday.
The nation’s largest public power provider is working with North Carolina-based GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy to build small reactors at Bellefonte in addition to the Clinch River Nuclear Site in Oak Ridge, Skaggs said.
The GE design is a 300-megawatt next-generation version of the boiling water reactor TVA operates at the Browns Ferry plant in Alabama.
TVA is meeting frequently with Japanese banks aiming to provide funds for the expensive projects, Skaggs said. The Trump administration negotiated a $40 billion trade deal between Japan and the U.S. involving major Japanese investment in the advanced reactors.
“I can’t say it’s going to be done, but I can tell you that the work that’s going on is fast. It’s a hot pace. There’s a ton of energy associated with it,” Skaggs told a packed room at the Knoxville Convention Center. “These energy contracts that we’re working through are some of the biggest energy contracts … These are very complex negotiations that we’re working through. But my feeling is that the probability of this happening is pretty good.”
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The federal utility halted work on the Bellefonte plant in 1988 after spending 14 years and billions of dollars on a facility that looks from the outside like an operating site.
Building advanced reactors at unfinished nuclear plants would provide a second life to sites that have stood for decades as reminders of TVA’s faulty predictions of power demand in the 1970s and 80s that led to their cancellation. TVA did not finish 10 of the 17 large-scale nuclear reactors it originally planned.
TVA is also in discussions with Houston-based Entra1 Energy to build small modular reactors near its unfinished nuclear site in Hartsville, Tennessee, Skaggs said. The site, where TVA imploded an unused cooling tower last year, sits around 50 miles northeast of Nashville in Trousdale County.
TVA is in a unique position amid the nationwide revival of investments into new nuclear energy, as an agency of the U.S. government that’s self-funded by sales of electricity used by more than 10 million people in the South. The utility already operates one of the largest nuclear programs in the U.S. across three traditional plants in Tennessee and Alabama.
TVA planning small modular reactors at abandoned Bellefonte nuclear plant
TVA last year became the first utility in the U.S. to apply for a construction permit for a small modular reactor, a permit it could receive by the end of the year as the Trump administration speeds up the approval process. The technology is viewed as a key way to meet rising power demand driven by data centers.
The federal utility had a bumpy relationship with President Donald Trump under former CEOs, though the relationship has stabilized under Skaggs, a former TVA nuclear executive who came out of retirement earlier this year to lead the agency.
Part of the normalization of the Knoxville-based agency’s relationship with the White House has relied on convincing the Trump administration of TVA’s ability to deliver on a goal to rapidly expand nuclear energy generation.
“We’re spending a lot of time in negotiations and working on contracts to ensure that we are there and that we are providing the leadership that the administration is asking us for,” Skaggs said. “What it looks like is that we advocate and we use the land that was provided to us through the TVA Act to make sure that we can situate and position nuclear plants inside the Tennessee Valley.”
Skaggs spoke at the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop, a multiday annual event hosted by the Oak Ridge-based East Tennessee Economic Council, an economic development group focused on nuclear energy and research.
CLEAR STRATEGY
The small modular reactor negotiations are part of a nuclear strategy Skaggs has promoted since his return. The strategy has four principles, he said:
— Funding for the nuclear reactors must come from outside TVA, which can’t fund the projects under a $30 billion debt limit set by Congress in 1979.
— Companies that will buy the electricity generated by new nuclear reactors need to be part of the reactor development deals, including as funding partners. TVA has used this arrangement with Google and California-based reactor developer Kairos Power.
— TVA must minimize risks to itself and its customers from the projects.
— TVA will operate the new reactors as a licensee.
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“If we’re going to operate these plants, we need to make sure that they’re safe and they’re reliable, and they’re appropriate for the Tennessee Valley, and that they’re going to be just like the existing plants we have,” Skaggs said. “They’re going to be something that we can be proud about.”
TVA’s existing nuclear plants supply around 40% of its generated electricity. As the power supplier to virtually the entire state of Tennessee, TVA is a partner for nuclear companies and federal agencies in Oak Ridge, the original Manhattan Project site.
Contact business reporter Daniel Dassow at ddassow@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.