TVA withdraws Bellefonte nuclear construction permits 33 years after work halted

The Tennessee Valley Authority withdrew a previous request to extend the construction licenses for the 2,520-MW Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station in Alabama nearly 50 years after work began on the power plant.

Those construction permits, which would have extended the Bellefonte permits until October 2022 now will expire on Oct. 1, said Jim Hopson, public information officer for the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, and Dave Gasperson, public affairs officer for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

TVA's decision to withdraw its permit extension request followed a notice to the commission that the federal authority would not renew its regulatory permit for the plant after a federal judge agreed to cancel the proposed sale of Bellefonte to real estate developer Franklin Haney Sr.'s Nuclear Development LLC.

TVA agreed to sell the incomplete two-unit facility to Nuclear Development LCC for $111 million in 2016, but TVA pulled out of the deal, arguing the company needed approval from the NRC to transfer the construction permits for units before the sale could proceed.

Bellefonte's two 1,256-MW pressurized water reactors were approximately 90% and 58% complete in 1988 when work on them was halted.