Knoxville, TN – The Tennessee Valley Authority has reduced its plans for a potentially four-unit nuclear plant in northeast Alabama down to one reactor.
The federal utility said Friday that it is preparing a supplemental environmental impact statement to consider a single nuclear unit for its Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala.
TVA officials say that single unit might be one of the two advanced reactors for which it has already applied for a combined construction and operating license. Or it might be one of the two unfinished reactors that have been mothballed at the site for 35 years.
The shift comes as TVA wrestles with declining electric sales blamed on the poor economy and a $1 billion cleanup of a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee.
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