TVA receives construction permit for Clinch River

Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the Tennessee Valley Authority's construction permit application for its planned GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 at the Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

This regulatory approval represents a number of milestones. It's the first BWRX-300 construction permit granted in the United States and the second in North America (following approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site in Ontario, Canada). It's also the second construction permit granted for a U.S. commercial reactor in nearly a decade, closely trailing the construction permit granted in March to TerraPower's Natrium project in Kemmerer, Wyo.

The background: The Clinch River site has a complex history stretching back decades. A good starting point for its story is 1972, when TVA, Commonwealth Edison, and the Atomic Energy Commission signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on a breeder demonstration plant. As the July 1972 issue of Nuclear News reported at the time, the group originally planned to site this demonstration plant at an existing coal-fired power plant: "the idea was that the turbine generators at the plant . . . could be used with either the fossil or the nuclear steam system." Ultimately, the partners instead decided on a greenfield 1,200-acre tract of land on the Clinch River.

This first project at Clinch River, which was slated to be a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor, progressed significantly. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, site preparation was undertaken, the majority of equipment was either ordered or delivered to the site, environmental hearings were completed, and licensing was well underway. However, ballooning costs and political pressures would, in the end, lead to the project's failure. That failure was in part attributed to the intervention of President Jimmy Carter, who opposed the project on nonproliferation, economic, and technical bases. More on that history has been chronicled elsewhere by Nuclear News. Suffice to say, by the early 1980s, the project was dead in the water with no hope of ever being completed.

The recent context: Jumping ahead past many quiet years on the banks of Clinch River, the story becomes more straightforward. In the early 2010s, TVA began considering the deployment of an SMR, and siting at Clinch River was an obvious choice. In 2019, the utility earned an early site permit from the NRC, and momentum began to pick up after the turn of the decade.

In February 2022, the TVA board approved a plan to explore advanced reactor deployment and announced its intent to pursue the BWRX-300 for the site. Later that year, the utility signed an agreement with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (now called GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy, or just GVH) to support the planning and licensing of the project. Work continued over the next three years, bolstered by increased funding by TVA, further partnerships with industry, regulatory progress with the NRC, and significant funding from the Department of Energy.

The BWRX-300 is a 300-MWe boiling water reactor designed by GVH. The "X" in its name denotes that it is the 10th generation of General Electric's BWR design. GE's BWR-3, BWR-4, BWR-5, and BWR-6 designs (all of which have higher capacities than the BWRX) are operating across the U.S. fleet today.

The latest update: Today, TVA announced that the NRC has officially issued the construction permit for Clinch River. Of this milestone, Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee said, "The Clinch River project represents the next chapter in our state's legacy of innovation, strengthening America's energy security and creating opportunity for generations to come." His sentiments were echoed by other state representatives, as well as leaders from GVH and TVA.

While no specific dates for construction were announced alongside this milestone, the involved companies have previously targeted the early 2030s for commercial operation.