First new US nuclear reactor in 20 years enters operation

[frigidmagi]

thehill

The United States’s first new nuclear generator in 20 years has entered commercial operation in Tennessee.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s 1,150-megawatt Watts Bar 2 reactor is officially online and producing electricity for to 650,000 homes and businesses, the company announced Wednesday.

Watts Bar 2 is the 100th nuclear reactor to operate in the United States, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, and the first new reactor to open in 20 years.
The reactor formally connected to the grid in June, but the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said Wednesday that it underwent testing and a slow ratcheting up of power before today.

With Watts Bar 2, the TVA has six nuclear units across its fleet.

“TVA’s mission is to make life better in the valley by providing reliable, low-cost energy, protecting our area’s natural resources and working to attract business and growth – all priorities simultaneously supported by the completion of Watts Bar Unit 2,” TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson said in a statement.

“Watts Bar Unit 2 is a key part of our commitment to produce cleaner energy without sacrificing the reliability and low cost that draws both industry and residents to our area.”

The reactor is decades in the making.

Construction on the reactor began in 1973 but was put on hold in 1985. Officials restarted work on the project in 2007, and it was finally completed last year at a cost of $4.7 billion. It is the first reactor to meet stronger standards approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.

Four other nuclear reactors are under construction in the United States, and the federal Energy Information Administration expects them to go online within the next four years.

[LadyTevar]

Those who grew up in the 1970s/80s were raised on dreams of clean power -- nuclear, solar, wind. But we all know what happened. Electric and gas companies stifled research and industry choked out any possible replacements. The only options allowed were those that were already in place and making *someone* money.

So, my generation gave up on the dream, and it's been hard to reawaken hopes that things will change, because overall, nothing has.

[Lys]

How the precisely did electric, gas, and coal companies suppress research and development of alternate energy sources? Most R&D is done by private companies looking to make a profit which means other companies can do damn little to prevent it. Even with the R&D funded out of the public coffers it's notoriously difficult for to lobby lawmakers into closing off any particular avenue of research. It's only when there is some kind of wide public outcry that it's really possible to do it, and there was never any such thing against wind or solar. There was such a thing against nuclear power, but to the best of my knowledge radiation panic was driven mainly by the environmentalist movement, not the energy lobby. In fact significant segments of the energy lobby were heavily invested in nuclear power, and its lack of growth has been more a bane than a boon for them.

The fact is that harnessing solar and wind power is not that simple. These energy sources used to be significantly more expensive than fossil fuels which made them very uncompetitive when faced with a market with little interest in them. It is only in the last decade or so that we saw a greater public desire for clean energy, combined with dropping prices thanks to advancing technology, which finally made these alternate energy sources competitive. Once the market forces aligned, solar proceeded to grow at a fairly explosive rate. World wide solar power generation is over one hundred times larger today than it was twelve years ago. No amount of machinations from fossil fuel companies could have stopped that. In fact a lot of energy companies have taken to the simple expedient of riding the wave. British Petroleum for example is big investor in clean energy sources, because it's profitable and BP likes making money.

[General Havoc]

How the precisely did electric, gas, and coal companies suppress research and development of alternate energy sources? Most R&D is done by private companies looking to make a profit which means other companies can do damn little to prevent it. Even with the R&D funded out of the public coffers it's notoriously difficult for to lobby lawmakers into closing off any particular avenue of research. It's only when there is some kind of wide public outcry that it's really possible to do it, and there was never any such thing against wind or solar. There was such a thing against nuclear power, but to the best of my knowledge radiation panic was driven mainly by the environmentalist movement, not the energy lobby. In fact significant segments of the energy lobby were heavily invested in nuclear power, and its lack of growth has been more a bane than a boon for them.

The fact is that harnessing solar and wind power is not that simple. These energy sources used to be significantly more expensive than fossil fuels which made them very uncompetitive when faced with a market with little interest in them. It is only in the last decade or so that we saw a greater public desire for clean energy, combined with dropping prices thanks to advancing technology, which finally made these alternate energy sources competitive. Once the market forces aligned, solar proceeded to grow at a fairly explosive rate. World wide solar power generation is over one hundred times larger today than it was twelve years ago. No amount of machinations from fossil fuel companies could have stopped that. In fact a lot of energy companies have taken to the simple expedient of riding the wave. British Petroleum for example is big investor in clean energy sources, because it's profitable and BP likes making money.

Lys is entirely correct. This notion that sustainable energy research was destroyed by Big Oil is a pernicious lie employed primarily by Baby Boomers and Environmentalists to cover up their own ludditism and lack of interest. The reason we did not wind up with wind turbines providing all of our power is that nobody wanted wind turbines or the power generated from them, because said power was fifteen times more expensive than fossil fuel and required the erection of hundreds of thousands of turbines that nobody wanted nearby. Nuclear power meanwhile was subjected to a concerted PR campaign intentionally designed to make the prospect of nuclear power so expensive as to kill any market interest. That wasn't BP and Chevron, that was your local environmental lobby.