By Alabama Public Radio
Scottsboro, AL – The Tennessee Valley Authority will begin writing off a $3.9 billion investment in the unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant in North Alabama. The twin-reactor plant in Scottsboro has been mothballed since 1988. TVA officials have decided that billions of dollars that were spent on the plant in the 1970s and 80s have no value for its future. Chief Financial Officer Michael Rescoe says the decision to depreciate most of what TVA spent on Bellefonte during the next 10 years was an accounting move to satisfy regulators. But Rescoe says the federal utility has not given up on the 1,500-acre Bellefonte site as a viable location for a power plant. He says it could possibly be a next-generation nuclear plant.