TVA wants to study finishing nuclear reactor

The Tennessee Valley Authority is ready to pursue a study on completing a second nuclear reactor at its Watts Bar station ? the last nuclear plant to come on line in the United States, a top official said Thursday.

Directors of the nation’s largest public utility will be asked Friday to approve $20 million for a detailed engineering study to show how much it will cost to complete Watts Bar Unit 2, TVA President and acting CEO Tom Kilgore told The Associated Press in an interview.

“That doesn’t mean that they are deciding to do Watts Bar 2,” he said. “It means that we are asking them to spend money so that we can decide how much it would cost.”

TVA will continue working with a group of utilities looking at another nuclear option ? using TVA’s unfinished Bellefonte nuclear reactor site in Alabama to build a modern nuclear reactor, which would be more reliable and less costly than current reactors.