POWER April 2011 - 67

NUCLEAR
The bursting of nuclear's nascent post2005
bubble may turn into a positive development.
Going forward with a smaller
number of stronger projects-Asselstine
predicts four to eight new units in service in
the 2014-2020 time frame-means that the
industry can work deliberately, " focus carefully, "
respond to developing challenges, and
get it right from the beginning, something
that largely eluded the industry during its
first blooming. " It is critical that the very first
new plants succeed, " he said.
Small Nuclear Is Big Business
While many in the industry consider the COL
essential for a rebirth of nuclear power in the
U.S., the original two-step process remains
on the books. TVA intends to use that original
process in pursuing a license for a small,
modular reactor to be built on the old Clinch
River Breeder Reactor site near Oak Ridge,
Tenn. TVA is looking seriously at putting a
Babcock & Wilcox 125-MW mPower lightwater
reactor on the site to supply the federal
agency's largest single direct-service customer,
the USEC uranium enrichment plant. The
small modular reactor project would displace
coal-fired power from the agency's 10-unit
Shawnee generating station at Paducah, Ky.,
which was built between 1951 and 1957.
TVA's Bailey told the Platts meeting that
the elderly two-step process provides more
flexibility for a first-of-a-kind technology
such as mPower, allowing the builder " to
make changes during the construction. " Under
the COL, the builder is locked into the
approved final design in the license.
Lessons Learned
Nobody was more enthusiastic about nuclear
power in the 1970s than TVA, which ended
up scrubbing twice as many nuclear projects
as it was able to bring to commercial operation.
TVA had multiple projects under construction
simultaneously, all using different
reactor technologies, and was using multiple
vendors and contractors.
Bailey told the February meeting that the
giant power agency has no plans to repeat
that unpleasant experience. " We are going to
be careful to do it one at a time, " he said. " We
will have only one project under construction
at any one time. " TVA in the late 1970s and
1980s learned the lessons of irrational exuberance,
and Bailey said the utility does not
wish to repeat them.
TVA and the rest of the nuclear players
seem to have come to their senses and realized
that, while not as exciting as manic exuberance,
calm rationality gets the job done. ■
-Kennedy Maize is a POWER contributing
editor and executive editor of
MANAGING POWER.
April 2011 | POWER
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