Battle of the Big Nukes

Deck: 

Why the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy chose Westinghouse’s nuclear power-plant design over GE’s.

Fortnightly Magazine - May 2007
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It seems the rivalry that goes back to the “War of Currents” era in the late 1880s continues to play itself out over and over again between Edison’s General Electric and Westinghouse, even in the 21st century.

George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries over Edison’s promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over the alternating current (AC) advocated by Westinghouse (now owned by Toshiba) and Nikola Tesla. Edison’s low-voltage distribution system using DC ultimately lost to AC.

Jack Bailey, vice president, nuclear generation, at Tennessee Valley Authority explains why his organization finally decided on the Westinghouse AP1000. TVA is part of the NuStart consortium at the Belafonte site in Scottsboro, Ala., where TVA is developing a combined operating license for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor.

NuStart Energy is a company owned by nine power companies, created in 2004 for the dual purposes of: 1) obtaining a construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, using the never before used, streamlined licensing process developed in 1992; and 2) completing the design engineering for the selected reactor technologies.

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