When Boilermakers completed the Browns Ferry Unit 1 in June, it became the nation’s first nuclear unit to come online in the 21st century.
More work for District 57 members — and close to home!
FOR THE FIRST time in the 21st century, a nuclear unit has been brought online — TVA’s Browns Ferry Unit 1. Another unit is scheduled for completion over the next five years — TVA’s Watts Bar Unit 2. And District 57 Boilermakers are on the job.
According to Terry Johnson of TVA’s communications department, TVA restarted Browns Ferry Unit 1 and is completing Watts Bar Unit 2 to meet the growing demand for electricity, which continues to increase at a rate of one to two percent per year.
“Browns Ferry 1 remained a licensed nuclear facility and had been previously operated,” Johnson explained. “TVA was able to return the asset to service in a timely manner and at a cost competitive with other alternatives for base load power generation. Similarly, Watts Bar is an existing asset that can be completed in a timely and cost competitive manner to help meet the near-term needs for power.”
TVA operates six nuclear units at three facilities: Browns Ferry (3), near Athens, Ala.; Watts Bar (1), near Spring City, Tenn., and Sequoyah (2), in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn. Together, these facilities make enough electricity for more than four million homes, 30 percent of TVA’s power supply. And TVA is considering the addition of two more nuclear units.
“TVA is a member of the NuStart consortium that will submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a combined operating license for a two-unit nuclear plant at TVA’s Bellefonte site in northeast Alabama,” Johnson reports. “Though TVA has not made a decision, obtaining a combined operating license for the site will pave the way for construction of a plant there if TVA determines new nuclear is the best option sometime in the future.”
In all, TVA provides about 33,000 megawatts of power to about 8.7 million residents in seven states (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) through 158 locally-owned distributors.
Johnson said the TVA Board approved recommendations to bring the Browns Ferry Unit 1 back online, and complete the second unit at the Watts Bar nuclear plant, based on results of four detailed studies that examined future power needs, cost and schedule, environmental impact, and financing and risks. He says TVA has no immediate plans to change the use of its other generating assets, and has been expanding its combustion turbine resources as well.
Browns Ferry Unit 1 is first nuclear unit to come online in 21st century
A LARGE PERCENTAGE of the workers who rebuilt Unit 1 were Local 455 (Sheffield, Ala.) Boilermakers who live in the area. According to Jack Frost, L-455 BM-ST, the proximity of Browns Ferry to Alabama’s Quad Cities (Florence, Sheffield, Muscle Shoals, and Tuscumbia) allowed workers to stay at home instead of traveling to nearby states for work. “They’re accustomed to going to where the jobs are all across the country,” Frost said.
Located on the Wheeler Reservoir near Athens, Ala., the unit had been shut down since 1985. When it restarted, Unit 1 it became the nation’s first nuclear unit to be brought online in the 21st century and the 104th operating nuclear reactor in the country.
Browns Ferry is TVA’s first nuclear plant, completed in 1977. All three of its units were shut down in 1985 because of safety concerns. Units 2 and 3 were put back in service in the early 1990s; efforts to bring Unit 1 back online began in 2003. The restart was completed within its projected five-year schedule at an estimated cost of $1.8 billion. Bringing Unit 1 back added 1,155 megawatts of emission-free power to the TVA system. TVA spent more than four million work hours to prepare engineering and design specifications for the restart, and more than 15 million man-hours to modify, replace, and refurbish systems and components. More than 1,200 tests were performed to make sure the unit would operate safely.
Five-year Watts Bar project expected to employ 2,300 workers
MEMBERS OF LOCAL 454 (Chattanooga, Tenn.) could be working closer to home now that TVA has announced plans to complete construction of its Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 2, located near Spring City, Tenn. Construction work halted in 1985. TVA estimates that the Watts Bar Unit 2 will take five years to finish.
That means five years of steady work for Local 454 members and other District Lodge 57 Boilermakers who live nearby in Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tenn. At peak, the project is expected to employ 2,300 construction workers. As many as 800 workers are expected to move into the area to help complete the unit.
“This is something Local 454 has been hoping for since construction was halted in the mid ‘80s,” said Bobby Lunsford Jr., BM-ST for Local 454. “This time frame will allow a great number of 454’s members to be able to retire when this unit is complete.”
Lunsford estimates that around 150 Boilermakers will be involved in the unit’s construction, which should last four to six years. In addition to Local 454 members, Boilermakers from District 57 Locals 263 (Memphis, Tenn.), 453 (Knoxville, Tenn.), 455 (Sheffield, Ala.), and 687 (Charleston Heights, S.C.) will work throughout the plant completing such projects as the ice condenser, steam generators, heat exchangers, package boilers, MSRs (moisture separators reheaters), and reactor coolant pumps.
Watts Bar currently employs 515 people at the plant; they will add another 250 full-time workers when Unit 2 becomes operational.
