A nuclear regulatory panel has rejected an appeal by environmental groups to block the completion of the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Alabama.
But in a 40-page decision released Friday, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board said there still are "several possible areas of concern" with the Bellefonte reactors where construction was halted in 1988.
The advisory board to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a hearing should be held before any of the units ever begin power generation. But the three-member group ruled that it would not conduct any immediate hearing into complaints about how the NRC reinstated the construction permit last year to allow work to resume at Bellefonte.
A group of environmental organizations, including the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, objects to plans by the Tennessee Valley Authority to possibly finish the Units 1 and 2 at Bellefonte. TVA started construction on the units in 1974, suspended work in 1988, canceled the units in 2006 and then reversed itself and got NRC approval to reinstate its construction permit in 2008.
TVA spokesman Ray Golden said the utility still is studying whether to finish the original reactors at Bellefonte or pursue building one of the new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. Either option is expected to cost TVA more than $4 billion and take at least another five years of construction.
Opponents to Bellefonte claim the area is not geologically suited for a nuclear plant and that equipment in the two unfinished reactors was not properly maintained once TVA scrapped the units four years ago.
The NRC panel rejected such complaints. But panel members urged the NRC staff to maintain "significantly enhanced vigilance" due to "TVA's off again/on again approach to their construction" at Bellefonte over four decades.
TVA still must get regulatory approval before any construction could resume on the units, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said. Once built, TVA also would have to gain approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an operating permit at Bellefonte.
Mr. Hannah said the decision of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, unless successfully appealed, allows TVA to conduct further tests and prepare to ask federal regulators to upgrade the construction permit to active status when, and if, it decides to finish the units.
Mr. Golden said TVA has yet to decide whether to finish Bellefonte and pledged "an open and transparent process" as utility officials consider options.
"Today's decision affirms that TVA had provided valid reasons for reinstatement of the Bellefonte construction permits and that these reasons were properly considered and acted upon by the NRC," he said.