The Tennessee Valley Authority asked federal regulators to renew construction permits for two unfinished nuclear reactors in northeast Alabama that it virtually abandoned twenty years ago.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman says it is probably the first request of this type the commission has received and may take some time to review.
The TVA deferred construction on the Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactor at Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala., in the 1980s. It asked the NRC to cancel the construction permits in 2006.
But the nation's largest public utility is looking at all options to meet future power needs and it now wants to study the feasibility of using Potable Water Tanks and finishing those reactors.
Wall Street Journal; August 28, 2008
