Delivering the nuclear promise: TVA’s sale of the Bellefonte nuclear power plant site

Even as Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz convened a “summit” to discuss more governmental assistance to the nation’s troubled nuclear power plants, the recent announcement by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that it is selling its northern Alabama site containing the unbuilt Bellefonte reactors should have sobered the summiteers. Even if the site’s appraised value of $36 million is realized, TVA customers will get back less than a 2016 penny for each of the $6 billion they have spent on the site over 46 years...

Continuing its expensive half-century role as the leading enabler of Washington’s nuclear innovation pork barrel, the TVA has applied for an early site permit (but not a construction license) for up to 800 megawatts worth of small modular reactors at Clinch River. At his May 19 nuclear “summit,” Energy Secretary Moniz pledged his department’s continuing support—meaning that US taxpayers will pick up a substantial share of the TVA small modular reactors’ permitting costs. Congress is seeking to add additional support...

While these road shows roll on, actual experience suggests the wisdom of a more competitive path. Other power supply options are rapidly falling in cost, and large scale power storage projects are underway in many states.. Even new combinations of existing resources are proving competitive in low carbon contexts...

Doug Koplow, whose Earth Track website has for years been the best source of energy subsidy analysis, has chronicled and classified the subsidies received by nuclear power, an amount that far exceeds the totals made available to renewable energy: “Since its inception more than 50 years ago, the nuclear power industry has benefited—and continues to benefit—from a vast array of preferential government subsidies….Subsidies to the nuclear fuel cycle have often exceeded the value of the power produced”. Koplow’s subsidies do not count most of the costs of the nation’s 120-plus canceled nuclear plants, or the cost overruns at the operating reactors...