Watts Bar Unit 2, last old reactor of the 20th century: a cautionary tale

[kristopher]

Watts Bar Unit 2, last old reactor of the 20th century: a cautionary tale
Don SaferSara Barczak 10/08/2015

More than four decades after construction began in 1973, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is finally getting close to starting up the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor. Only final tests stand in the way of it receiving an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). While the TVA and the nuclear industry describe Watts Bar 2 as “the first new nuclear generation of the 21st Century,” in fact the TVA resuscitated a demonstrably unsafe 1960s-era ice condenser design that was abandoned decades ago by the rest of the nuclear industry. Mismanagement and construction problems have driven the project’s price tag up with billions of dollars in cost overruns. Safety continues to be compromised as the NRC is allowing the TVA to delay post-Fukushima seismic design upgrades indefinitely. Rather than exemplifying a fine technological achievement, the history of Watts Bar Units 1 and 2 is a cautionary tale of the worst pitfalls of nuclear power and the federal regulatory system.

This pair of nuclear reactors has a unique distinction. Back in 1996, Watts Bar Unit 1 was the last reactor completed in the United States, at a hefty $6.8 billion. No other reactors have come online since. In fact, according to the NRC, eight US reactors have permanently shut down since Watts Bar 1 was licensed.

Now, Watts Bar 2 is poised to become the next operational reactor in the United States. When Watts Bar 2 comes online, the TVA will be generating almost 40 percent of its power from seven nuclear reactors along the Tennessee River: the two at Watts Bar, near Spring City, Tennessee; two more ice condenser reactors at Sequoyah, near Chattanooga; and three General Electric Mark 1 boiling water reactors at their Browns Ferry plant (using the same design as Fukushima Daiichi), near Decatur, Alabama.

Watts Bar 2 comes from a federally owned utility that has a history of delays, problems, and fiscal irresponsibility when it comes to nuclear power. This history raises the question of why Watts Bar 2 has survived such a long time and whether it should ever be allowed to open. It is a saga of delays and cost overruns, antiquated designs, inadequate quality control and oversight, failure to implement post-Fukushima upgrades, and a deficient safety culture, among other problems—all at a time when there is still no place for long-term storage of the nuclear waste that will be generated. And because the TVA manufactures tritium for use in America’s nuclear weapons, there will inevitably be greater releases of tritium into the air and water of the region—natural resources which already receive four times as much tritium as originally expected.

Ironically, Watts Bar 2 comes when the large-scale development of new, truly clean energy sources is a burgeoning reality...

http://thebulletin.org/watts-bar-unit-2-last-old-reactor-20th-century-cautionary-tale8783

LATimes coverage
America's newest nuke plant shows why nuclear power is dying in the U.S.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-america-s-newest-nuke-plant-20151011-column.html

[HassleCat]

1. Big welfare system

Too many people built their careers on a particular technology. To abandon that technology would put them out of work, and it would violate the old, "We put so much money into this, we can't walk away now." Since the regulators and the regulated are essentially the same people, there will be adequate exemptions and waivers to ensure the whole circus keeps moving. At taxpayer expense, of course. And in 20 or 30 years, they will want to decommission the plant, and we'll get to pay for it again.