March 17, 2014

TVA TO WAIT AT LEAST THREE MORE YEARS FOR DECISION ON MOX FUEL

By ExchangeMonitor

After safety violations were uncovered at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Brown’s Ferry plant, officials for the utility are planning to wait another three to four years to make a decision on whether to burn mixed oxide fuel in its reactors. The utility has faced a host of issues recently with its reactors and is in the process of addressing a number of violations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at its Brown’s Ferry plant in Alabama. Preston Swafford, chief nuclear officer for TVA, said last week that the utility would not make a decision on using MOX until the operational issues at the reactors are resolved. “It’s just so low on my radar screen that I refuse to jump in the fray,” Swafford told the Times Daily of Florence, Ala. “I don’t think I do service to the ratepayers of the Valley bringing on one more issue. Now three or four years from now, when the fleet’s back to steady, we’ll take a look at the product.”

TVA is currently the only utility publicly considering using the fuel, which will be produced at the facility under construction at the Savannah River Site and will be a key part for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plutonium disposition plans. Last year the utility said it would make a decision on using the fuel after the NNSA’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on plutonium disposition is finalized in 2013. However, in August the NRC announced increased oversight for the three Brown’s Ferry reactors after the agency issued low-level violations related to procedures for a safe plant shutdown. One of the reactors is also still under scrutiny following a high-level violation in 2010. TVA officials said last week they have uncovered over 1,000 issues of concern at the plant and plan on adding at least 100 employees at Brown’s Ferry, according to reports.

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