Tennessee Area aglow over nuclear growth

Monday, Nov 17, 2008

Bechtel Corp. and its subcontractors have hired 1,425 workers in East Tennessee this year to resume construction of what is expected to be the first new nuclear reactor completed in America in more than 15 years.

Nuclear proponents in Chattanooga said Friday those hired to work on a second reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant could represent the first of thousands of new jobs created in the Tennessee Valley from a renaissance of nuclear power.

During a luncheon Friday of the revived Chattanooga chapter of the American Nuclear Society, industry leaders said the city is positioned to capitalize on any revival of nuclear energy.

“I believe that East Tennessee has a historic opportunity to play a major role in the resurgence of nuclear power,” said Sherrell R. Greene, director of nuclear technology programs at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Mr. Greene said rising energy demand and concerns over global warming could create a need for the United States to triple the number of nuclear plants by 2050 at a cost of more than $900 billion.The research programs at Oak Ridge, TVA’s plans for more nuclear plants and nuclear component manufacturing and services by Alstom Power Co., Westinghouse Electric Co. and others in Chattanooga “really places us in a position to be the international center for the development and demonstration of the next generation of nuclear technology,” Mr. Greene said.

But critics of nuclear power question both the need and expense of more nuclear plants.

“We haven’t yet figured out how to deal with the wastes created by this technology and no one knows what it is going to cost or even if these new plant designs will work,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an anti-nuclear group based in Knoxville. “We could create far more jobs from conservation and renewable energy than we will by investing in nuclear power.”

However, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said a revived nuclear power industry “could play an even more impressive role” in the local economy than the recently announced $1 billion Volkswagen assembly plant.

Already, Bechtel and other TVA contractors working on finishing the $2.5 billion completion of the Unit 2 reactor at the Watts Bar nuclear plant plan to employ more than 2,300 construction workers by the end of 2009. The TVA reactor will be the first U.S. nuclear unit completed since the unit 1 reactor at Watts Bar was completed in 1996.

Source: Times Free Press