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Watts Barr 2 Reactor Completion Delayed to 2015

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1. U.S. government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said on Thursday it now sees the new reactor at the Watts Bar 2 nuclear power plant in Tennessee online between September and December 2015 at a higher estimated cost of $4 billion to $4.5 billion. In February, TVA said the 1,180-megawatt Watts Bar 2 project was running over budget and behind schedule. TVA decided in 2007 to complete the second reactor at Watts Bar to help meet the region’s growing demand for power. The unit was expected to enter service in 2012 at a cost of about $2.5 billion.

TVA decided in August that it would complete the 1,260-MW Bellefonte 1 reactor. In the past, TVA said the project would cost about $4.9 billion and could enter service by 2020. The company has said it would take about six years of construction time to finish Bellefonte 1, which was already about 55 percent complete. But the ultimate cost and timing for Bellefonte depends on work at Watts Bar 2.

Watts Bar is one of five new reactors the industry expects to complete by 2020 as part of a slow-moving nuclear renaissance in the United States.

2. China’s Hongyanhe reactor is on track for a startup in October, 2012

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