Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station
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The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station (BLN) is an unfinished
nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...
in
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,
Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
,
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.


History

A total of four
nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a Nuclear fission, fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for Nuclear power, commercial electricity, nuclear marine propulsion, marine propulsion, Weapons-grade plutonium, weapons ...
s (two originally; and two of new designs), have been proposed for the site over a 40-year period, with over $4 billion having been spent (constructing the preliminary plant infrastructure and ordering/delivering/installing major equipment items).TVA report 2016
tva.gov
But no nuclear reactor nor electric generating plant was ever completed; two cores of nuclear fuel were originally delivered however these were returned on plant deferral. Meaningful construction progress at the site was halted in 1988. Starting after its termination in 2005,
Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA) implemented an investment recovery effort to recoup some of the costs associated with Bellefonte. As part of the investment recovery effort, all or parts of some major plant components, including steam generators, feedwater heaters, large pumps and motors, demineralized water and condensate storage tanks, main condenser tubes, and some piping and valves were removed and sold. Additionally, some usable components were transferred from Bellefonte to other TVA facilities as spares.


Units 1 and 2

The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station site is owned by the
Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
and is located in
Hollywood, Alabama Hollywood is a town in Jackson County, Alabama, Jackson County, northeast Alabama, United States. In 2020, the census showed a population of 914 residents. Hollywood is considered a suburb of Scottsboro, Alabama, Scottsboro, the county seat. Th ...
. The two partially built 1,256
megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...
(MWe)
pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan, India and Canada). In a PWR, water is used both as ...
s on the site were made by
Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. is an American energy technology and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio. Historically, the company is best known for their stea ...
; they are called a 205 design due to the number of fuel assemblies in the core. These units are of the same design as WNP-1, which is also unfinished, and as the Mülheim-Kärlich A reactor in Germany, which operated for three years and proved the design. Reactor Unit 1 construction was estimated at 88%  complete (mechanical - nuclear island) and Unit 2 construction was estimated 58% complete (mechanical - nuclear island) when TVA's Board suspended the project and the plants' construction in 1988, after a combined $6 billion investment. Subsequent asset recovery activities (i.e., the removal (without ordering or planning for replacement), of usable equipment and systems to other TVA power plant sites), along with more recent (2000s) inspections of the operable state of remaining equipment, resulted in BLN 1&2 now being considered approximately 55 percent and 35 percent complete (mechanical - nuclear island only) respectively. Although the construction permits were terminated on September 15, 2006, TVA investigated the completion of these first two units with operation projected to start Unit 1 in 2017 and Unit 2 in 2021. In August 2008 TVA asked the NRC to reinstate the construction permits as part of the restart evaluation. This request was granted by the NRC on February 9, 2009, albeit as a terminated application, which required significant inspection of all systems to bring the license to the deferred stage. The status was upgraded January 14, 2010 to "deferred".


Units 3 and 4

On September 22, 2005 it was announced that Bellefonte was also selected as the site for one or two
AP1000 The AP1000 is a nuclear power plant designed and sold by Westinghouse Electric Company. The plant is a pressurized water reactor with improved use of passive nuclear safety and many design features intended to lower its capital cost and improve ...
pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan, India and Canada). In a PWR, water is used both as ...
s to be called Units 3 and 4. TVA filed the necessary applications in November 2007 to begin the design and construction process. For details, see Nuclear Power 2010 Program. In August 2009, the Tennessee Valley Authority, faced with "falling electric sales and rising costs from cleaning up a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee", trimmed plans for the potential four-unit Bellefonte nuclear plant to one reactor.


Later developments

On August 20, 2010 the TVA Board of Directors authorized $248 million to continue development of the Bellefonte Unit 1. On August 18, 2011, the TVA board of directors voted to proceed with the construction of the unit one reactor at Bellefonte. In 2011, TVA approved a plan to restart construction of the Bellefonte Unit 1 reactor, dependent on work at another reactor TVA completing - Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee. In December 2012, TVA said the Watts Bar 2 project was on schedule to finish in December 2015. TVA again announced staffing cuts at the plant in June 2013, reducing staffing at the plant from 540 to approximately 140. During this time new Steam Generators were purchased and fabricated. Those generators are now stored onsite pending any new construction. In October 2013, it was announced that former TVA Chairman Dennis Bottorff and financier Franklin L. Haney had drafted a proposal to finish the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant using private funds and federal tax credits


Sale of site

In 2015 TVA determined that it would be unlikely to need a large plant such as Bellefonte for the next 20 years, and in May 2016 elected to declare the plant surplus, and sell the 1,600-acre site at auction for a minimum price of $36.4 million. On October 14, 2016, TVA directors declared the unfinished nuclear plant to be surplus property and set a November 14, 2016 auction date to sell the unfinished plant and property. Nuclear Development LLC, led by Chattanooga-based developer Franklin L. Haney, won the auction to purchase the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant with a bid of $111 million, three times the minimum bid of $36.4 million. Nuclear Development intended to complete the two units at a projected additional investment of over $13 billion. Haney's bid beat the only other bidder, Jackson Holdings of Alabama LLC, which was hoping to use components from the unfinished plant for a reactor under construction in
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. Another prospective bidder, Phoenix Energy of Nevada, was unable to complete financing arrangements in time to place a bid. As of November 2017, construction at the facility was expected to start by the end of 2018 and take approximately five years to complete. Nuclear Development LLC made agreements to partner with SNC-Lavalin and Enercon Services, Inc. in the completion of the project. In August 2018, it was reported that Haney agreed to pay Michael Cohen (associate of President Donald Trump) $10 million in exchange for help obtaining federal funding for the project. Haney says he hired Cohen to pursue investment from a Qatari sovereign fund and that neither he nor Cohen sought to lobby Trump about DOE loan guarantees. In December 2018, TVA pulled out of the sale agreement, citing failure by Haney to obtain regulatory approval for the transfer of the site. A federal judge ruled in May 2019 that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) must continue to honor an agreement to sell the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant to a real estate developer who has said he would complete construction of the long-idled project. U.S. District Court Judge Liles C. Burke, in a 17-page opinion issued after a hearing in Huntsville, Alabama, declined to dismiss a lawsuit brought by developer Franklin Haney, who sued TVA in November 2018 for breach of contract after TVA said it could not complete the sale of the Bellefonte site and its assets to Haney’s Nuclear Development LLC The trial to either complete the sale or refund investments to Nuclear Development has been delayed due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the matter has not come to trial as of February 25, 2021. In the meantime, TVA was continuing to maintain Bellefonte in accordance with the NRC permits. In August 2021, the court ruled that TVA was not required to sell the site to Haney's company.commercialappeal
/ref> File:Bellefonte Nuclear.jpg, Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station File:BellefonteDecay.JPG, Bellefonte Nuclear in 2008 File:Bellefonte aerial.jpg, Bellefonte Nuclear - Aerial


Construction Permits

On 10 September 2021, TVA submitted a letter to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the ...
withdrawing its request for an extension of the construction permits for the plant’s unfinished Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactors. The permits would expire on 1 October 2021. This effectively stopped any prospect of completing the plant as a nuclear generation facility.TVA gives up construction permits for Bellefonte units
Nuclear Newswire, 2021-09-22


Reactor data

The Bellefonte Generating Station consisted of four cancelled reactors.


References


External links



{{Tennessee Valley Authority Facilities Nuclear power stations using AP1000 reactors Nuclear power plants in Alabama Cancelled nuclear power stations in the United States Buildings and structures in Jackson County, Alabama Nuclear power stations using pressurized water reactors Tennessee Valley Authority Towers in Alabama Unfinished nuclear reactors