Nestled between Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee, the Watts Bar 2 nuclear power plant sits on 1,700 acres in an area friendly to nuclear power. It’s near Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which might be best remembered for its work on the Manhattan Project. The 1,150-megawatt plant is undergoing testing to go fully online this month, and will join the existing 1,100-megawatt Watts Bar plant, which already provides 650,000 area homes with electricity that emits zero carbon emissions. The number of states that support nuclear is by no means high. Although 29 states have renewable energy goals, until recently, only Indiana and Ohio expressly included nuclear energy in those strategies. But other states are starting to craft plans to subsidize nuclear power generation, which accounts for 20% of the nation’s total electricity production.
Guardian 12th Sept 2016 read more »