At a time when Japan has finally woken up to the long term dangers of nuclear power and has, in the wake of Fukushima disaster, shut down its last operating nuclear reactor, this mass layoff announcement by the Tennessee Valley Authority is even more maddening. Here is ClarionLedger.com with the details:
The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Friday that it lost $94 million in the last quarter as electricity sales slumped during an unusually warm winter and it faces an over-budget project to finish building a nuclear reactor in Tennessee.But wait, it gets even better:
TVA officials said they would seek to cut fewer than 1,000 positions in an effort to trim spending.
The electric supplier brought in nearly $2.6 billion in revenue during the three-month period ending in March, a drop of more than 12 percent compared to the same period last year, according to federal filings. Power sales were down about 7 percent for the quarter.
The electric supplier said an unusually warm winter cut the demand for electricity and the prices TVA can charge for it. TVA officials stood by the board's recent decision to approve adding $1.5 billion to $2 billion to the estimated cost of building a second nuclear reactor at its Watts Bar power plant in Spring City, Tenn. That brings the final cost of the project to as much as $4.5 billion.
The TVA plans to save an estimated $100 million by cutting 1,000 positions among employees and contractors, Janet Herrin, TVA's executive vice president and chief administrative officer, told workers in a memo. Some of those positions are now vacant. Of the full-time TVA workers targeted in the job cuts so far, about half have been moved to other positions within the authority, she said.I don't know about you, but if I lived anywhere near Watts Bar that statement wouldn't give me a whole lot of confidence.
CEO Tom Kilgore said the TVA would do a better job managing the nuclear construction project at Watts Bar and measuring progress.
Bonus: "Turn me on tonight...I'm radioactive"
Hey BH, congrats and Happy Anniversary!
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you didn't link "Uncle Frank" by DBT. This post got me thinking about that song:
They powered up the city with hydro-electric juice.
Now we got more electricity than we canever use.
They flooded out the hollow and all the folks down there moved out,
but they got paid so there ain't nothin' else to think about.
Some of them made their living cutting the timber down,
snaking it one log at a time up the hill and into town.
T.V.A. had a way to clear it off real fast.
Lots of men and machinary, build a dam and drown the rest.
Uncle Frank lived in a cabin down on Cedar Creek,
bought fifteen acres when he got back home from overseas.
Fifteen rocky acres, figured noone else would want,
'till all that backed up water had to have some place to go.
Uncle Frank couldn't read or write
Never held down a job, or needed one in his life.
They assured him there'd be work for him in town building cars.
It's already going down.
The cars never came to town and the roads never got built
and the price of all that power kept on going straight uphill
The banks around the hollow sold for lake-front property
where Doctors, Lawyers, and Musicians teach their kids to waterski.
Uncle Frank couldn't read or write
so there was no note or letter found when he died.
Just a rope around his neck and the kitchen table turned on its side