Utility officials restarted a long-dormant nuclear reactor in Alabama on Tuesday, 22 years after it was shut down because of safety concerns at what was once the U.S.'s largest nuclear power plant. The restart capped a five-year, $1.8 billion (¤1.34 billion) renovation at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. Plant spokesman Craig Beasley said there were no reports of problems. Extensive testing remained to be done before electricity from the Unit 1 reactor began flowing on transmission lines. The plant's other two reactors remained at full power. «Right now they're looking at the pressure inside the reactor. They will keep the power very low for several days, and then increase it to 35 percent,» he said. The entire three-reactor plant was idled in 1985 amid mounting worries over plant safety and management. The Unit 2 and 3 reactors were restarted in the 1990s after extensive renovations and upgrades. Restarting the reactor «gives TVA another dependable, safe and emissions-free source of generation to help meet the growing demand for power in the Tennessee Valley,» TVA Chief Executive Tom Kilgore said in a statement. Capable of powering 1.95 million homes total, Browns Ferry was the nation's largest nuclear plant until it was shut down. In 1975, an employee using a candle to check for air leaks in Unit 1 sparked a fire that was considered the nation's worst nuclear power accident until the partial core meltdown of the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 in Pennsylvania. The Browns Ferry plant is along the banks of the Tennessee River, about 95 miles (153 kilometers) north of Birmingham.
