TVA appoints former Shaw Areva MOX president as head of Watts Bar 2 construction restart

The Tennessee Valley Authority has named Dave Stinson, former recovery manager for TVA's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 3, as vice president for the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 2 construction project.

Stinson first came to TVA in 1992, and his work throughout the mid-90s included helping return Browns Ferry Unit 3 to service in 1995.

"Dave Stinson's extensive experience in managing complex projects will help us reach our goal to have Watts Bar Unit 2 online before the end of 2012," said Ashok Bhatnagar, senior vice president of Nuclear Generation Development and Construction. "Completion of this project will help TVA achieve its vision to be a leading provider of cleaner, low-cost energy by 2020."

The five-year, $2.5 billion Watts Bar Unit 2 project began in 2007 and will be the first new reactor to achieve commercial operations in the United States since Watts Bar Unit 1 in 1996. The reactor will add 1,180 megawatts to the TVA power system and will provide about 290 permanent jobs. Some 3,500 contract workers are involved in its construction.

Stinson takes over the position from Marie Gillman, who had managed the Watts Bar 2 project on a temporary basis since Jan. 28. Stinson most recently worked at Shaw AREVA MOX Services, where he served as president and chief operating officer from 2006 to 2010. In that position, he headed design, construction and licensing of the Department of Energy facility being built in South Carolina to convert surplus nuclear weapons material to mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel for nuclear power plants.

In other news, the new president and chief operating officer of Shaw Areva MOX Services, Kelly Trice, recently welcomed an NRC safety evaluation report for the $4.8 billion MOX fuel fabrication facility under construction at Savannah River for the US Department of Energy. The MOX facility will convert US surplus weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants to produce electricity. It is scheduled for start-up in 2016.

The report, released in December 2010, contains the agency staff’s conclusion that the design and operation of the MOX facility will not pose an undue risk to worker and public health and safety. The company said that the final safety evaluation report is a significant milestone in the licensing process for MOX Services to operate the facility. The objective of the review was to evaluate the facility's potential adverse impact on worker and public health and safety and the environment under both normal operating and accident conditions. The review also considered the physical protection of special nuclear material and classified matter, material control and accounting of the nuclear material as well as management organization and administrative programs to provide for the safe design and operation of the facility.

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