CHANGE: A Nuclear Evolution Is Occurring In Tennessee.

While it’s been a long and slow process, the Tennessee Valley Authority is moving closer to starting up one of its nuclear plants that it expects will displace coal and help curb the region’s carbon emissions.

Most of the attention is now given to those merchant nuclear units that are in the process of closing, with little focus on the gradual development of TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 2. Originally licensed in 1972, it shut down in the 1980s because of security and economic concerns. Now, though, the Clean Power Plan has thrust this plant forward.

That final regulation released in August requires a 32 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030, from a 2005 baseline. It gives full recognition to all new nuclear plants or those existing ones that make upgrades, although it does not give current nuclear plants any credit for carbon reductions. With that, Watts Bar 2 is expected to rev up this year — long before 2020, which is when Southern Co SO +2.33%. and Scana Corp. are to complete two units each.

All are to be baseload plants that run around-the-clock. The two units at Southern and the two at Scana will each generate about 2,200 megawatts. TVA’s Watts Bar 2 will crank out 1,150 megawatts. For the record, nuclear power has the greatest “capacity factors” of all power generation, or 92 percent; wind and solar energy are half that.

If you’re worried about carbon emissions, you need to support nuclear power, or you’re not serious.