As reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation, the federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has decided to sell off its uncompleted Bellefonte, Alabama twin unit nuclear power plant, and site property, for $36 million. But TVA has invested $6 billion of ratepayer (and perhaps also federal taxpayer) money into the project over the past four decades.
After a decades-long abandonment of Bellefonte Units 1 and 2 atomic reactors, TVA's attempt to revive the project led to the label of "zombie reactors" by critics. In fact, TVA has previously sold off major components, which required their replacement. That effort has now turned out to have been a complete waste of time and money, as opponents had warned.
Meanwhile, TVA is poised to connect Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee to the electric grid. It would be the first atomic reactor start up in the U.S. in 20 years, since Watts Bar Unit 1 in 1996.
Watts Bar 1 took 23 years from groundbreaking to grid connection (1973 to 1996).
Watts Bar 2 has taken 43 years already (1973 to 2016), and has not yet achieved grid connection.
How nuclear power is supposed to avert a looming climate catastrophe, when atomic reactors take a quarter-century to half-century to complete, is not exactly clear. That's when it's "successful."
What about the astronomical costs of nuclear power plant failures, as at Bellefonte, AL? How much real greenhouse gas reductions could have been achieved through energy efficiency and renewables like wind and solar, had $6 billion not been wasted at Bellefonte?!