Dive Brief:
- A private developer will purchase the stalled Bellefonte Nuclear Plant from the Tennessee Valley Authority, with a plan to invest up to $13 billion and ultimately complete the power plant.
- Development of Bellefonte began in 1974, but construction was halted in 1988; TVA spent about $4 billion on project before determining it did not need the baseload power.
- According to the Times Free Press, Nuclear Development LLC will pay $111 million for the plant. Unsuccessful bids included using the site for a renewable project, and a group wanting to ship the unfinished reactor to India.
Dive Insight:
There are no details about when Bellefonte might finally be complete, but Franklin Haney, whose family owns Nuclear Development, said construction could recommence as soon as 2017.
"The Bellefonte Nuclear Station will help transform communities across the region – many of which have been hit hard by the forced closure of coal power plants over the last decade," Haney said in a statement.
Completing the facility could create up to 4,000 temporary construction jobs and 2,000 permanent positions, he said. The Bellefonte project, which includes 1,300 acres on the Guntersville Reservoir, has two partially-constructed Babcock & Wilcox reactors which are about 55% complete.
In May, TVA's board of directors voted to classify the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant property as "surplus," in order to begin preparing it for auction. TVA had held Bellefonte as an option for future nuclear generation, but the utility's most recent Integrated Resource Plan showed that large-scale power generation sources would not be needed for at least 20 years.
Phoenix Energy of Nevada submitted a $38 million bid for plant, just above the $36.4 million minimum bid set by TVA. The company had hoped to use the site and retrofit it with its magnetic induction generation technology to create carbon-free generation.
