TVA is working to identify sites throughout its seven-state footprint for small modular nuclear reactors that could potentially bring new jobs to north Alabama.

While TVA has not yet revealed those sites, it’s possible one could be in north Alabama given that the region falls within the TVA coverage area and includes land already owned by the federal utility along the Tennessee River. TVA said it is first evaluating sites already in its inventory.

In Jackson County in northeast Alabama along the Tennessee River, TVA owns about 2,000 acres at the site of the former Widows Creek fossil plant near Bridgeport and about 1,600 acres at the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant near Scottsboro.

As far as workforce, TVA said it does not have estimates of what would be needed to outfit an SMR site. A U.S. Department of Energy from earlier this year estimated about 237 permanent jobs on site for an SMR – roughly half of the workforce needed for large reactors.

Such economic development prospects, though, are at least a decade or more away from reality – assuming Alabama even landed one of the SMR sites. But it could be a peek into TVA’s power generation future and how it might impact the state beyond monthly electricity bills for customers.

In a presentation earlier this month at the Tennessee Valley Corridor national summit in Huntsville, TVA’s Chief Nuclear Officer Tim Rausch outlined plans for the utility’s adoption of small modular reactors, known as SMRs, that have a smaller footprint than conventional nuclear generation facilities.

Those plans, Rausch said, including presenting three sites to the TVA board for consideration that would join TVA’s first approved SMR site at Clinch River near Oak Ridge, Tenn. TVA is valuing nuclear energy as it strives toward its goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 80 percent by 2035 and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

TVA said about 42 percent of its energy generation is nuclear – led by Browns Ferry near Athens, its top generating asset and the second-largest nuclear power producer in the country. Rausch described TVA as being “all in” on SMRs. In fact, CEO Jeff Lyash said TVA was looking to build about 20 SMRs across its coverage area during a presentation last year to the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Rausch said the SMRs will be – as the name suggests – smaller than a conventional nuclear plant. He described the four-reactor site planned at Clinch River as “four football fields next to each other.” SMRs, by definition, can generate up to 300 megawatts of electricity but have the advantages of improved safety, lower costs and smaller footprints, which could lead to more site options, according to TVA.

“Later this year, we intend to recommend to our board of directors the next three sites where we would build four reactors on each,” Rausch said in his presentation. “So we’re not intending to build a single unit, we’re not intending to build a single site.”

As far as the smaller costs offered by SMRs, Rausch said that it would use about one-tenth the amount of concrete and rebar that is needed for a conventional plant site.

Last year, TVA entered a partnership with Ontario Power Generation to “help develop small modular reactors as an effective long-term source of 24/7 carbon-free energy in both Canada and the U.S.,” according to the announcement. And earlier this year, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Synthos Green Energy joined the collaboration “to advance the global deployment of the GEH BWRX-300 small modular reactors.”

“Our intentions are to help one another resource, share the cost, share the lessons, finalize the design and the concept is ‘design once, build many,’” Rausch said of the General Electric boiling water reactor design.

And while the ‘S’ in SMRs stands for small, Rausch said it could also stand for simple – which could lead to an SMR blueprint easier to duplicate.

“For example, the fuel that will fuel the BWRX-300 small modular reactors is the exact same fuel we’re using at Browns Ferry,” Rausch said. “So there isn’t a new technology or new fuel design that we need. There’s a passive safety system called an isolation condenser. Those have been used in our industry and other industries since the 60s when they built the first BWRs for commercial operation. It’s just retrofitting those, bringing up to higher standards through materials. But the technology already exists. So we’re very happy with that.”

Cost management is a critical component of SMR development as well. Georgia Power earlier this year began generation at Plant Vogtle, a four-reactor nuclear plant about 25 miles southeast of Augusta that was seven years late in completing with cost overruns of $17 billion. It’s the first new nuclear plant built in the U.S. in decades.

Rausch said the SMRs also have the flexibility and efficiency to complement other sources of carbon-free energy production, such as solar power.

“So as we bring renewables to bear, solar is going to be great when the sun’s out,” Rausch said. “But when the sun goes away, what are we going to back it up with? So when the sun comes up, and it’s a nice beautiful day, we can easily take these advanced nuclear reactors and we can load follow — they can bring their power level up and down as smoothly as the sun comes up. And then as the sun sets, we can bring that back up to its full power. The current very large ones … they don’t really load follow like we need them to do with renewables.”