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Public unable to get information to assess safety, viability, critics say NASHVILLE - The electric industry's effort to fast-track a new design for nuclear reactors has triggered complaints about transparency and questions about the suitability of a TVA site in Alabama. Advertisement Just over a year ago, the Tennessee Valley Authority, backed by a consortium of other electric utilities, applied for a license to build along the Tennessee River the first of a new generation of nuclear reactors.

The working group that evaluates dredging permits for the Clinch River environs has evaluated the Emory River Embayment and concluded that no Oak Ridge-related hot pockets of radioactive material exist in the underlying sediments. Therefore, the Watts Bar Interagency Working Group approved a TVA request for dredging in the Emory. The group convened a meeting Monday via conference call to deal with the matter expeditiously and set the stage for recovery efforts associated with last month's coal ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant.

The electric industry's effort to fast-track a new design for nuclear reactors has triggered complaints about transparency and questions about the suitability of a TVA site in Alabama. Just over a year ago, the Tennessee Valley Authority, backed by a consortium of other electric utilities, applied for a license to build along the Tennessee River the first of a new generation of nuclear reactors. Advertisement But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has raised questions about TVA's environmental assessment of the Bellefonte site about 100 miles southeast of Nashville, saying the power producer's flooding studies couldn't be verified. And environmental and anti-nuclear advocates have launched a challenge with the NRC to the licensing process, saying that the commission should halt review because the never-built reactor proposed for this and other sites is still undergoing design changes.

n the arguments against nuclear energy, critics have taken aim at the debt ceiling of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the federal loan guarantee program for support investments in new nuclear power plants. These critics seem to have forgotten something very important. There are some jobs the government must do, and one of the most important is to take on the very large tasks that cannot and do not belong in the realm of the so-called "free market."

Completing nuclear sites, capital growth nears $30 billion limit federal utility decides to build more nuclear plants. TVA's debt now totals about $25.2 billion. The agency has been able to cut its debt by more than $2.5 billion since 1997. Still, this leaves less than $5 billion for new capital projects.

Ann Harris, a former TVA employee and nuclear plant whistleblower, has been named to receive a national Sierra Club award for her "strong and consistent commitment" to increasing awareness of how nuclear issues can affect lives, the environmental and conservation group announced. Harris, who lives in East Tennessee, is a Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter member and leader of the national group's radiation committee.

TVA should not be allowed to expand its fleet of nuclear reactors at the Alabama site where two partly completed reactors now stand, according to environmental groups who made their case Wednesday before an oversight board of the nation's nuclear regulatory agency.

But TVA lawyers say no evidence to support claim SCOTTSBORO - An environmental group cited cancer risks, an unstable terrain, Guntersville Lake's diminishing aquatic life and several other reasons in its opposition Wednesday to building a second nuclear plant near here. Louis Zeller, director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, presented information at a public hearing that he says shows exposure to low levels of radiation in a nuclear plant over its typical 40-year lifetime will lead to about 100 people getting cancer and about half of them dying from it.

It is beyond my belief that David Freeman had the nerve to come back to Chattanooga last week spouting his misguided comments about TVA's nuclear power program. It was under his leadership, while chairman, that led TVA to abandon its nuclear construction of the many planned nuclear plants that were on the drawing board and some on the way to be a reality.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has received $4 million to develop a conceptual design for a nuclear waste reprocessing plant that could end up as a demonstration facility built on the former Clinch Breeder Reactor site.

A week after a dam collapsed at the Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee and dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash waste into the nearby community of Harriman and the Emory River, the Tennessee Valley Authority collected samples of the ash and tested them for radioactivity. The summary of results [pdf] released by the company suggested the risk was minimal, stating that the total radioactivity in the ash was "less than that found in low sodium salt available to consumers on the shelves of grocery stores."

Small nuclear reactors - like a mini-car versus a Hummer - are on the drawing board of the nuclear industry, which has been hard-pressed to get financing for the standard-size models. The Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to help one nuclear power company, Babcock & Wilcox of Lynchburg, Va., gain certification for such a scaled-down version. The reactors would be a tenth of the normal size and suitable for a community of 100,000 residents. The atom-splitting operations and radioactive waste would be stored underground, which advocates say offers more protection from airplane sabotage by terrorists.

Gail Richards says NRC trying to intimidate her for reporting lax security Gail Richards thought her nightmare was over. In April, the Tennessee Valley Authority whistle-blower reached a settlement over her firing, which came after she reported security lapses in the power producer's nuclear energy program. But now the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission - the group that oversees TVA's nuclear facilities - has started its own investigation of Richards for potential infractions, including whether she improperly took private documents that she used to defend herself in a series of workplace allegations. Richards said NRC investigators grilled her for several hours this month in a Washington, D.C., hotel, threatening to get the Department of Justice involved in her case - a prospect that the wife and grandmother worries could lead to prison. She and her lawyer say the NRC is guilty of the same intimidating retaliation tactics that it's supposed to protect whistle-blowers from.

Babcock and Wilcox, the Tennessee Valley Authority and a consortium of municipal and cooperative utilities have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the construction of a fleet of B&W's modular, 125-MW nuclear reactors in the US, B&W said Wednesday. B&W also said that it has received a letter of intent from TVA stating the federal utility will "begin the process of evaluating a potential lead plant site" for the B&W mPower reactor. The company added that it has assembled a "global team of potential future customers to support the development of the reactor" to ensure it meets customer and regulatory requirements in North America, Europe and elsewhere.

"President Obama has called for a world without nuclear weapons. As he prepares to whittle down America's arsenal, however, a crucial question remains: what to do with the bomb material? Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has decommissioned thousands of warheads-the explosive cores of which are in storage, pending a way to dispose of their plutonium. Leaving it intact is a potential security risk. But most of the alternatives (including launching it into the sun) have their own risks. While non-weapons-grade plutonium is used to fuel nuclear plants in Europe, it has never been processed out of a warhead and into a form for commercial reactors. That could change. The Department of Energy is building a South Carolina-based plant that can convert America's plutonium stockpile into fuel. And late last month, the Tennessee Valley Authority agreed to evaluate it for use in its reactors near Chattanooga and Athens, Ala. If the TVA ultimately accepts the fuel, which energy analysts expect it to, the final home of much of the U.S. arsenal could be the heart of Dixie-and lightbulbs throughout the nation."

North Carolina's top elected officials have agreed the state should pay another quarter-million dollars for outside lawyers and expert witnesses for three pending lawsuits. Council of State members approved yesterday giving $253,000 from a special fund to the state Justice Department. Attorney General Roy Cooper said the money will pay invoices for defending North Carolina against lawsuits filed by other states involving a low-level radioactive waste compact and the Catawba River basin. And Cooper said the state's lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority already is leading to reduced pollution from TVA power plants. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry voted no because she's not persuaded all expenses are justified. The council has authorized more than $4 million for the three lawsuits over the years.

North Carolina's top elected officials have agreed the state should pay another quarter-million dollars for outside lawyers and expert witnesses for three pending lawsuits. Council of State members approved yesterday giving $253,000 from a special fund to the state Justice Department. Attorney General Roy Cooper said the money will pay invoices for defending North Carolina against lawsuits filed by other states involving a low-level radioactive waste compact and the Catawba River basin. And Cooper said the state's lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority already is leading to reduced pollution from TVA power plants. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry voted no because she's not persuaded all expenses are justified. The council has authorized more than $4 million for the three lawsuits over the years.

The value of TVA's nuclear decommissioning fund has plummeted 41 percent amid market troubles, highlighting a potential problem with planning for the full costs of nuclear power. The fund, which was set up to one day cover the cost of dismantling all six of the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear reactors, lost $447 million since late last year.

TVA's estimate to build two nuclear reactors at its Bellefonte site in northern Alabama is "grossly inaccurate," says a group that filed a new challenge Monday to the agency's request for a nuclear power plant license. A cost of $22 billion would be closer than the $9.9 billion to $17.5 billion industry range the Tennessee Valley Authority quotes in recent documents, said Louis Zeller with the North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

The cost to build two nuclear reactors at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Bellefonte site in Alabama, 100 miles southeast of Nashville, could cost as much as $17.5 billion, more than double the estimate made last year. TVA put a range of $9.9 billion to $17.5 billion on the project in documents sent last month to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The amounts are much closer to what residents opposing the plant have said should be anticipated.

Where others see only radioactive waste, engineers at TVA and the Department of Energy envision another source of needed energy. Most of the potential energy in the nuclear fuel used to generate nearly 30 percent of the electricity in the Tennessee Valley remains untapped in spent fuel pools or dry casks at the Sequoyah, Watts Bar and Browns Ferry nuclear plants, said Sherrell R. Greene, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's nuclear technology programs.