Environment & Energy

FBaggins

(26,748 posts) Tue May 24, 2016, 03:35 PM May 2016

First criticality for Watts Bar 2 (first new nuclear in 20 years)

The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) newest nuclear reactor, Watts Bar unit 2, has reached first criticality. The 1165 MWe (net) pressurized water reactor is the first nuclear unit to start up in the USA since Watts Bar 1 in 1996.

Watts Bar 2 is the second unit to be built at TVA's site near Spring City, Tennessee. Its construction began in 1972, but work was suspended in 1985 when the unit was about 55% complete. TVA decided to resume work on the unit in 2007, awarding an engineering, procurement and construction contract to Bechtel.

TVA received an operating licence for the unit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in October 2015 and fuel loading was completed in December. The reactor achieved first criticality - its first sustained nuclear fission reaction - at 2:16 am EDT yesterday and is now generating heat under its own power. TVA said that the unit was operating in a stable condition at low power levels that will slowly be increased over the coming weeks as it moves towards commercial operation. Plant systems and controls will be monitored and tested at various power levels up to 100%. The unit is expected to enter commercial operation later this summer.

...snip...

The company is continuing to explore small modular reactors (SMRs) as a potential long-term resource and recently submitted the first early site permit application for an SMR - at Clinch River, Tennessee - to the NRC.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-criticality-for-Watts-Bar-2-2405167.html

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First criticality for Watts Bar 2 (first new nuclear in 20 years) (Original Post) FBaggins May 2016 OP

Better than coal... hunter May 2016 #1

hunter

(38,317 posts)

1. Better than coal...

Reply to FBaggins (Original post)

Tue May 24, 2016, 10:27 PM

May 2016

... better than any fossil fuel or hydro project, actually.

1165 MWe continuously simply can't be matched by wind or solar power.

The most reasonable argument against nuclear power is that it works. A shiny future where everyone is zipping around in their own nuclear powered Tesla automobile does not appeal to me. I'd prefer to walk, sail, or take the slow train, thank you.

I don't think cheap fusion energy would be much better; I'm not cheering for the people who are working on it.

We industrial humans are consuming the earth. Until we face that problem directly no magical technology is going to save us.

To many people nuclear power *IS* magical, radioactivity is demonic, and that's why it scares them.

It doesn't scare me. We live in a toxic stew of industrial toxins, most of them non-radioactive and difficult to detect.

Global warming scares me.

The only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources, nuclear included, are not going to replace fossil fuels. If they're not burning three megawatts thermal of coal or gas in Tennessee, then someone will burn it somewhere else.

If we began to quit fossil fuels, to live with the consequences of quitting, we'd have a much better idea of where we want to go. How much does solar air conditioning really cost when it's not backed up by combined cycle gas turbines? What are the best transportation options when there's no gasoline or diesel fuel for sale?

Until then, most anti-nuclear activism is simply another flavor of global warming denial.

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