TVA Defends Safety of Nuclear Reactors

The Tennessee Valley Authority is trying to put the public at ease about the safety of its three nuclear reactor sites, particularly in Browns Ferry, Alabama. The plant has a similar design to the one at risk of meltdown in Japan.

The Browns Ferry plant is only rated to withstand earthquakes up to magnitude 6.0. The quake in Japan rated a 9.0. But it was the tsunami that did most of the damage. So TVA is running as many scenarios as it can think of to see if its backup generators that cool the reactors would stay out of the flood waters.

Preston Swafford is TVA’s Chief Nuclear Officer and says even in the most unlikely of natural disasters, the diesel generators should stay high and dry.

“If part of a mountain were to slide into the river and cause a catastrophic tidal wave event for a river, still isn’t anywhere near this bounding event of this probable max flood scenario.”

If somehow the cooling capability was disabled, Swafford says there’d be no need for heroic efforts to dump water in the spent fuel pools. They have built-in fire hoses aimed directly at them.

TVA has been completing a second nuclear reactor at its Watts Bar facility south of Crossville. Swafford says the design has already been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, so he doesn’t expect the disaster in Japan to stop work on Watts Barr Unit 2.