As a follow up to Chris's post today, here's more background on TVA's nuclear power program.

TVA held a public hearing this week inviting public comment on the environmental impact statement for completing the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear power facility. The Knoxville News Sentinel has this report.

According to the article, TVA has already written off $1.7 billion on the project in 2001. It took 23 years to complete Watts Bar 1 at a cost of $6.9 billion. (Which I believe is more than TVA has spent on pollution controls at all of its coal-fired power plants during its entire existence.)

TVA is also set to restart Browns Ferry Unit 1 next month. Browns Ferry was shut down in 1985 when it was discovered that the plant's construction did not match the blueprints.

According to the " target="_blank">Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), TVA "has maintained BFN Unit 1 shut down and in a layup condition since 1985 when it voluntarily shut down and maintained shutdown of all three BFN units due to poor performance (i.e., significant enforcement actions, several operational events, equipment failures, and management's inability to identify and correct problems)." Units 2 and 3 were restarted in the 1990s.

Prior to that, a 1975 fire that started when a candle being used by engineers to locate an air leak ignited insulation around some wiring shut down the entire reactor cooling system and all it's redundant backups. The event nearly led to a reactor core meltdown, but improvised measures prevented a Tennessee Valley Chernobyl.

More recently, in April of 2004 the NRC served TVA with notice of a Severity Level III violation at Browns Ferry involving improper welds in the reactor "torus" (a suppression chamber surrounding the reactor as part of its containment system).

Even more recently, in April of this year the NRC cited a contractor at Browns Ferry for "deliberate misconduct" leading to a 2004 safety violation that exposed workers to radioactive contamination.

Given TVA's nuclear power safety record and their massive debt related to cost overruns for nuclear power facilities including some that were scrapped, should TVA be in the nuclear power business? Are there better alternatives (such as the pebble bed reactor)? And what about nuclear waste disposal?

Here's another good article on the controversy.