TVA has a large combined cycle plant, the Allen plant (formerly coal-fired), about 1/2 mile to the north of the X facility. And, they’re adding more generation at that plant, gas fired, in the form of fast-start combustion turbines that can be used to react to the customer needs and the inconsistency of sources like wind and solar. Of course, TVA needs to keep on top of its game and keep adding generation assets.
They’re actually adding 10 ea. 50+ MW fast-start generators at Johnsonville, partly to replace some aging old gas turbines, and partly to add to the generating capacity. There are also new combined-cycle gas turbines being built at the Cumberland coal plant facility, with plans to bring the first one on in a year or two, then retire one of the huge coal generators at Cumberland. They’ll do the same with a second one.
They’re also putting up a lot of $$$ towards the new small modular nuclear reactor which will be built in the Oak Ridge area. The concept shows promise. (though I think it’s dumb to be in on the ground floor, let someone else take the big financial hit).
At both the Paradise plant in KY and the Colbert plant in AL, TVA has added significant generating capacity in the last year or two.
And it’s all needed - TVA has enough on paper, but 2 years ago at Christmas time, they got caught with their collective drawers down and had to resort to rolling blackouts due to insufficient resources. A lot of it was due to doing a really poor job of winterizing plants, but part of it was also the attitude put forth by previous senior management that we’d never see power demand that high in the Tennessee valley again. They decommissioned a lot of coal, and replaced only part of it.
The notion that small modular nuke reactors are actually being considered is a big step for mankind. Glad to hear the Tar Babies are working on it. Way, way back in the 60/70’s, in my nuke years, I was a bit of an advocate for using the basic S3,4,5W style of submarine nuke plants as shoreside plants. That basic 35,000 buttkicking horsepower could power a lot of smaller size communities.
But the same watercooler, top floor geniuses, building the commercial plants refused to think about anything smaller than 500 megawatts. Bigger was better, they claimed, even tho the US Navy had already proved the smaller system. So that remained the “standard” for the next half century. And that also explains , in part, why Nukes fell out of favor: huge money and long lead times just weren’t attractive. Glad to see the shift in thinking. The guys I taught are mostly dead now so I’m wondering who the new guys are and where they learned the new tricks?
They’re also putting up a lot of $$$ towards the new small modular nuclear reactor which will be built in the Oak Ridge area. The concept shows promise. (though I think it’s dumb to be in on the ground floor, let someone else take the big financial hit).
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so, who is making these small modular reactors?