Westinghouse Electric Company has announced that it will begin shipping nuclear fuel to the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Watts Bar site for use in the Unit 2 reactor.

TVA recently received a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to receive, inspect and store new nuclear fuel for the reactor. This is a significant milestone, which provides the first fuel for a new U.S. reactor in 15 years.

Westinghouse manufactured the fuel assemblies at its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in Columbia, S.C. and will ship the assemblies between late June and August 2011.

Fuel loading is expected to begin in 2012 at Watts Bar 2, which is currently under construction. Once licensed to operate by the NRC, Unit 2 will be the first new reactor to achieve commercial operations in the U.S. since Watts Bar Unit 1 in 1996 and will add 1,180 megawatts to the TVA power system.

"America needs clean, affordable, homegrown energy to ensure the long-term security and viability of our energy supply," said Joe Belechak, senior vice president, Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel. "We are pleased to have achieved this significant milestone of providing fuel for the United States' first new reactor in many years."

Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation (TKY:6502), is the world's pioneering nuclear energy company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world.

Westinghouse supplied the world's first pressurized water reactor in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa. Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including 60 percent of those in the United States.

Tweet

Related Links Westinghouse Electric Company Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com