According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the two reactors at the Sequoyah plant are pressurized light water reactors (PWR). A second reactor planned for the Watts Bar plant is listed in appendix B, "Cancelled U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors," of the NRC Information Digest, with the notation that (as of the publication date) the reactor has not been formally cancelled. Watts Bar I is also a PWR.

Permanently Shutdown Commercial Reactors: Not applicable. As noted, there is one cancelled reactor: Watts Bar II.

Nuclear Research and Test Reactors Regulated by NRC: Not applicable.

Nuclear Power Generation in Tennessee, 1980 through 2005 Million kilowatthours

Sources: Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-906, Power Plant Report, and predecessor forms.

Nuclear Generation

Electricity generation by nuclear power plants is available for each reactor and each State for each of the following years:

• 2002
• 2003
• 2004
• 2005

Contribution of Nuclear Power

In 2008, the State of Tennessee ranked 15th in nuclear capacity and 15th in nuclear generation. Monthly and cumulative nuclear generation and annual nuclear capacity for each State and each reactor is reported in a table elsewhere on this site.

In 2007, coal accounted for two thirds of the electricity generated by the State. The percentage of electricity generated by coal, gas, nuclear, and hydropower for each state with at least one commercial reactor is reported in the Electricity Market table.

A quick glance at the U.S. coal reserves map reveals coal fields nearly encircling Tennessee.  Kentucky's coal data are split by EIA into two regions: western and eastern Kentucky.  Tennessee’s electric utilities imported 3.1 million short tons of coal from western Kentucky, the largest market for western Kentucky mines outside Kentucky itself. Combined with 2.5 million short tons from eastern Kentucky, 6.9 million short tons from Colorado and Wyoming, 3 million short tons from Illinois, and sundry amounts from various States, the total distribution to Tennessee power plants is 19 million short tons of coal.

Tennessee also uses hydroelectric power. During the Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began harnessing the power of mighty rivers in one of the Nation's greatest engineering feats. By 1942, TVA had 12 hydroelectric projects and a steam plant under construction simultaneously.

Tennessee’s three nuclear reactors provide nearly triple the power of all the dams in the State. 

Tennessee Nuclear Highlights

• In January 1943, General Leslie R. Groves persuades DuPont Company to build the pilot facilities at X-10 in Oak Ridge for the Manhattan Project, and eventually the reactors at Hanford, Washington. (The X-10 facility was to supply plutonium for the atom bomb.) The contract stipulated that DuPont would receive no payment other than costs plus $1 profit. (General Groves later reported that DuPont received only 66 cents in profit because the project was finished ahead of schedule). {Excerpted from Oak Ridge National Laboratory web site}
• On May 27, 1996, Watts Bar 1 began commercial operation. As of this publication, it remains the last new reactor to go on line in the United States.
• According to TVA, in September 2000, Watts Bar 1 operated continuously for 512 days, eclipsing the record of 468 days set at Sequoyah 1 in February of the same year.

The Next, Next Reactor

“To the extent that any event is foreseeable…the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will bring the first reactor of the 21st century on line.” In June 2007, two years after this statement appeared in a short EIA article entitled, “The Next Reactor,” TVA’s Browns Ferry 1 came on line. As of August 31, 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has 17 Combined License (COL) applications under review to build and operate one or more new reactors. The reactor that is most widely anticipated to be the next reactor to come on line is not among the 17. To the extent that any event is foreseeable, the TVA will bring the second reactor of the 21st century on line. In 2012, if all continues to go on schedule, Watts Bar 2, will become the next new U.S. reactor to go into service.

Used with permission. Copyright, Dan Henry, Chattanooga Times Free Press Cooling towers are impressive structures that can exceed 400 feet in height. Most visitors see them from the outside, but few visitors ever see this sight. This is the cooling tower of Watts Bar 2, viewed form the inside. Additional photos and information are available in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

In 1973, TVA began construction of the Watts Bar nuclear plant. Plans called for a pair of identical pressurized light water reactors (PWR), to be designated Watts Bar 1 and Watts Bar 2. During the course of construction, the NRC directed that numerous modifications be made to the reactors to meet NRC standards. Unit 1 was eventually completed at an estimated cost of $6.9 billion^[1] in 1996 and became the last new U.S. reactor to go on line in the 20th century. TVA decided that anticipated electricity demand did not warrant the completion of a second reactor, and Watts Bar 2 remained idle after an expenditure of $1.7 billion. Watts Bar 2 became a “Deferred Plant,” an NRC category for plants that are not cancelled, not under construction, not operating, not undergoing decommissioning, and not possible to categorize anywhere else. It is a category populated entirely by TVA plants: Watts Bar 2, Bellefonte 1 and Bellefonte 2, and until recently, Browns Ferry 1.

Watts Bar Nuclear Plant takes its name from a nearby sandbar that hampered navigation on the Tennessee River for many years. The problem was eventually resolved by creating the Watts Bar Reservoir and flooding the obstruction. Although the sand bar was a natural obstacle and Watts Bar 2 is a man-built asset, they have at least one thing in common: neither one could simply be ignored indefinitely. In August 2007, just a few months after Browns Ferry 1 came on line, the TVA Board voted to complete Watts Bar 2. A total of $2.49 billion has been allotted for the work. TVA anticipates the project will take five years to complete. On July 7, 2008, the NRC extended the period covered by the construction permit, moving the termination date to March 31, 2013.

The vote to complete Watts Bar 2 comes at a time of great uncertainty about the future of electricity demand. In April 2009, EIA revised its long-term electricity projections to show slightly less total generation in 2010 and beyond.^[2] With the U.S. economy continuing to struggle, electricity demand in the Tennessee Valley was 7 percent less in the first half of 2009 than in the first half of 2008. During this same period, however, nuclear generation for the State rose by nearly 11 percent.^[3] The passage of time will eventually reveal the more meaningful statistic.

Although Watts Bar 2 will be very similar to its companion unit, it will not be identical. The net summer capacity of Unit 2 (1,150 megawatts) is 27 megawatts more than that of unit 1. Unit 2 will benefit from knowledge gained in the construction of unit 1, which will help to keep costs down and avoid mistakes. The control room will be functionally identical to unit 1, so that operators trained on unit 1 will be able to transfer their knowledge to unit 2. According to Terry Johnson of TVA, there will also be some minor differences between the original unit 2 and the completed unit 2. Some of the pumps and motors originally installed were transferred to other TVA plants and must be replaced. Also, some internal work is being done on the turbine.

But safety and technology are not only factors that must be addressed. Environmental groups have express concern about the plant’s reliance on the Tennessee River for cooling water. The Tennessee Division of Water Pollution Control noted its own concerns. TVA will addressed these issues in its Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. TVA stated as follows:

“As described in Chapter 2 of the SEIS, the completion on WBN Unit 2 will primarily entail work inside of existing buildings and as such no major ground disturbing activities are planned….However, in the event that a discharge to surface or ground water is planned or would occur,^[4] TVA would notify Dayton Water Department.”^[5]

The decision to complete Watts Bar 2 is already having a significant impact on the local economy. On September 16, 2009, Ashok Bhatanagar, TVA’s senior vice president of Nuclear Generation Development and Construction, announced that approximately 2,055 people were working on the project and, “We aren’t even at peak construction yet. Next year we will begin bringing in more laborers as the engineers’ jobs will be completed.”^[6]

Nuclear advocates in Tennessee are hoping that their State will have room for more than one new reactor. When the flood of applications for nuclear plants in the 1970’s died out in the 1980’s, Tennessee felt the impact more than most other States. Cancelled were four reactors at TVA’s never-built Hartsville plant, and two reactors at TVA’s never-built Phipps Bend plant, and a pair of reactors at the never-built plant at Yellow Creek, just across the state line in Mississippi. All were victims of slumping demand and soaring costs. TVA’s announcement that Watts Bar 2 is on time, on budget, and gainfully employing thousands of people suggests that history won’t be repeated.

Nuclear expansion has one of its strongest advocates in Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. The Senator has proposed in Congress that the United States build 100 reactors in this country. How many of those 100 reactors will actually be built will quite possibly be influenced by the outcome of the Watts Bar project in the Senator’s home State. The building of many reactors starts with just one. According to EIA and other projections, nuclear expansion is not anticipated to end with just one.

The Computer and Nuclear Power

ORNL's work helped industry produce semiconductor chips for computers economically.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, a pioneer in atomic research, is also a pioneer in developing information and technology for the semiconductor industry (see photo). The two roles are not unrelated. "In the 1960's, using the Bulk Shielding Reactor, John Cleland and other ORNL scientists devised a neutral transmutation doping (NTD) method for uniformly distributing phosphorous ions in silicon."^[7] NTD silicon is used in electronic components.

Although a 1991 World Technology (WTEC) study revealed that "all European countries that operate nuclear power plants, as well as Canada, Japan, and the U.S., are moving toward the use of digital computers.,"^[8] it was probably not until the Y2K that the public developed a sense of their impact and potential impact. The WTEC study concluded that, at that time, U.S. nuclear plants were lagging behind other countries in using digital systems, although "the hardware for digital systems comes mostly from U.S. computer companies."^[9]

But if there was a "computer gap," it appears to have closed as U.S. plants come to increasingly rely on them. Vermont Yankee used a computer model to analyze the impact of its 20 percent uprate of capacity, incorporating new data as the changes were being implemented. A student at the University of Wisconsin, College of Engineering, developed a model to study Kewaunee's cooling system. But the computer's relationship to nuclear power extends far beyond the perimeters of its nuclear power plants. Computers play an essential role in monitoring nuclear stockpiles.

License Renewal

All Tennessee reactors are fairly new, and no renewal applications are currently on file.  The first license to expire will be for Sequoyah 1 in September 2020.    To learn the current status of license applications for other U.S. reactors, consult the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) web site.

Air Quality in Tennessee

Total greenhouse emissions for the electric power industry of each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia, are reported for the most current data year.

Of the 50 States plus the District of Columbia, the electric industry of the State of Tennessee ranked 15th highest in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2007. The State's electric industry ranked 15th highest in sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions and 13th highest in nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions.

Tennessee Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 (CO2)*

*Carbon Dioxide

Tennessee Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 (SO2)*

*Sulfur Dioxide

Tennessee Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 (NOX)*

*Nitrogen Oxide

More Information on Tennessee and Nuclear Power

University of Tennessee Nuclear Engineering Department. The Department will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2007.

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