Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant, Tennessee

The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant, located on the northern end of the Chickamauga Reservoir, a flooded portion of the Tennessee River, is home to one of the newest nuclear power plants in the nation. Though construction began in 1973, it was subject to numerous unanticipated delays and lengthy hiatuses. The operating license for Reactor Unit 1 was finally issued in 1996, while Reactor Unit 2 did not begin commercial operation until 2016, 43 years after construction first began. The total cost of both units was over $12 billion. Each unit can generate around 1,100MW, and both are owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the largest public power utility in the U.S. In 2002, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission modified Watts Bar's operating license to allow the Unit 1 reactor to produce extra tritium (a radioisotope of hydrogen) which is a critical component of nuclear weapons.