The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station (BLN) is an unfinished
nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...
in
Hollywood,
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
History
A total of four
nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
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).
[http://oig.tva.gov/reports/16rpts/2016-15376.pdf ] 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 Carolina ...
(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 Carolina ...
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 981 residents. Hollywood is considered a suburb of Scottsboro, Alabama, Scottsboro, the county seat. The ...
. 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, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...
(MWe)
pressurized water reactor
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...
s on the site were made by
Babcock & Wilcox
Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...
; 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
Mülheim-Kärlich is a town in the district Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is part of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") Weißenthurm. It is situated west of Koblenz, a few km from the Rhine. It is the site ...
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
Asset recovery, also known as investment or resource recovery, is the process of maximizing the value of unused or end-of-life assets through effective reuse or divestment. While sometimes referred to in the context of a company undergoing liqu ...
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 reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...
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 (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
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
SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is a Canadian company based in Montreal that provides engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services to various industries, including mining and metallurgy, oil and gas, environment and water, infrastructure, a ...
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 is continuing to maintain Bellefonte in
accordance with the NRC permits.
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 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 NRC began operat ...
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](_blank)
Nuclear Newswire, 2021-09-22
Reactor data
The Bellefonte Generating Station consisted of four cancelled reactors.
References
External links
*http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-19045.htm
{{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