Environmental group opposes TVA's Clinch River nuclear reactor plan

An environmental group has filed a petition with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in opposition to the small modular reactor proposed for a Clinch River site by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League filed the petition Monday. Lou Zeller, executive director of the group, wrote the petition and said TVA has not fulfilled National Environmental Policy Act obligations for the reactor.

“TVA is trying to justify this project as solution to global warming and to benefit energy security. What it does is undermine both,” Zeller said in a news release.

TVA announced in May 2016 that it would seek an early site permit from the NRC. The permit is an early step in approval for building a modular reactor at TVA’s 1,200-acre Clinch River site. The Anderson County site was once proposed for a breeder reactor, but that plan was abandoned in 1983.

A small modular reactor, or SMR, would be factory-built and hauled to the location. It would be a self-contained unit, which doesn't require the same level of infrastructure as a site-built reactor.

The proposal is a collaboration between TVA and the U.S. Department of Energy to speed entry of SMRs into the marketplace, but TVA officials recently have said they are at least several years away from deciding on construction.

At a May 2 workshop of TVA’s Regional Energy Resource Council, agency Vice President of Stakeholder Relations Joe Hoagland said TVA doesn’t really need the energy a new reactor would provide, but eventually the agency will have to decommission its three current nuclear plants, and the Clinch River facility may be ready by then.

TVA headquarters

TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said the permit process TVA is going through now is only making sure the site is suitable if and when TVA decides to build.

“We haven’t made any decisions to build anything on that site,” Brooks said.

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League opposed TVA’s Bellefonte reactor plan in Alabama; the agency withdrew that application two years ago, according to Zeller.

Zeller and several others urged TVA not to spend more money on planning nuclear plants, and direct efforts instead into renewable energy. Costs for solar and wind power are dropping rapidly, while many reactor projects are years behind and billions over budget, they said.

The group’s petition claims TVA’s reactors are “fraught with reduced safety margins” and have a “greater chance of damage from hydrogen explosions” among other things.