Yes, it is true. Check out the plant power status on the Nuclear Street home page and you will see a 1% next to Browns Ferry Unit 1.

 Here is the TVA Press release:

The Tennessee Valley Authority restarted Unit 1 at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in North Alabama today, completing one of the most extensive recovery efforts in the nuclear industry for an operating plant.

TVA received permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission May 15 to restart the reactor. TVA told the NRC on May 9 that it has the ability to operate and maintain all three units at Browns Ferry safely, that work to restart and operate Unit 1 is complete and that pre-start up testing was successful.

The restart completes the recovery effort within the five-year plan approved by the TVA Board in 2002, and at the projected cost of about $1.8 billion.

“Returning Browns Ferry Unit 1 to our nuclear fleet gives TVA another dependable, safe and emissions-free source of generation to help meet the growing demand for power in the Tennessee Valley,” said TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore. “The successful recovery of TVA’s third unit at Browns Ferry is a result of the commitment, determination and attention to detail of the people who did the work. I offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to all TVA employees and contractors who helped bring this important project to a successful conclusion.”

Operators began the deliberate, controlled process of restarting the reactor on Monday, May 21, and a self-sustaining nuclear reaction was achieved at 12:28 am CDT on Tuesday, May 22. Operators will gradually increase power in the reactor over the next several days and will test secondary plant systems to ensure they operate as designed.

TVA will continue to conduct tests on the reactor and the other plant systems during the next several weeks, including a series of brief connections to the power grid, followed by deliberate “automatic” trips, or shutdowns, to ensure that safety systems operate correctly.

Following these and other tests, the unit will be reconnected to the TVA power system for the final time. The tests are part of a program designed to bring the plant safely to power production. TVA conducted similar power-ascension tests during the successful restart and subsequent safe operation of Browns Ferry units 2 and 3.

“All three units at Browns Ferry are essentially alike now,” said TVA Acting Chief Nuclear Officer Preston Swafford. “We have new or refurbished equipment that is operated in the same manner on all three units, and our ongoing operations, maintenance, training and oversight programs can focus on sustaining high-quality performance to ensure the safe and reliable operation of Browns Ferry.”

TVA completed more than 4 million work hours preparing the engineering and design and more than 15 million work hours modifying, replacing, and refurbishing systems and components to ensure Browns Ferry Unit 1 can produce electricity safely and reliably to meet the growing need for power in the Tennessee Valley.

TVA installed modern digital instrumentation and controls, modern power supplies, replaced 200 miles of electrical cable and eight miles of pipe, replaced or refurbished the unit’s large pumps and motors and conducted more than 1,200 tests that showed Unit 1 meets the design and regulatory requirements for safe operation.

Browns Ferry is located on Wheeler Reservoir in Athens, Ala. All three units are capable of producing more than 1,155 megawatts of electricity each, enough for each unit to supply power to approximately 650,000 homes. TVA also operates two units at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy Daisy, Tenn. and one unit at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City, Tenn.

TVA shut down all three Browns Ferry reactors in 1985 to address management and operational concerns. Browns Ferry units 2 and 3 were returned to service in 1991 and 1995, respectively. The recovery of Unit 1 used lessons learned from the restarts of units 2 and 3, and Unit 1 has the same upgrades and improvements made on the other two units.

In May 2002, the TVA Board approved returning Unit 1 to service, calling it the best business decision to meet the Tennessee Valley’s long-term power needs. The Board based its decision on improved nuclear performance, increased power demand in the Valley, a positive evaluation of the environmental impact, and a detailed scoping, estimating and planning effort for the Unit 1 restart.

Latest Update on why Browns Ferry Unit 1 went down.... (From: http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1180084568254030.xml&coll=1)

 Spill during tests not radioactive;restart is delayed

The Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Browns Ferry, which TVA began operating Tuesday after a long dormant period, was shut down early Thursday following a 600-gallon leak of hydraulic fluid from a control system.

The incident occurred around 2 a.m., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, after workers were trying to repair a small leak in the electro-hydraulic control system, which regulates water into the reactor, steam and condensation.

The incident did not involve radioactive material.

Malcolm Widmann, branch chief for the NRC's Division II reactor projects, who helped oversee inspections for the five-year, $1.8 billion restart effort on Unit 1, said that the event didn't affect plant safety systems and that the unit was operating at very low power.

Craig Beasley, spokesman for Browns Ferry, said the utility is cleaning up the fluid, which spilled in the turbine building. He said the Tennessee Valley Authority has not determined when it will restart the reactor and resume the testing program.

Prior to the initial Unit 1 restart, TVA said it gradually would increase power in the reactor and test its systems for several weeks to ensure safe operations.

Beasley said the incident Thursday is the kind of thing the testing program is designed to address.

Two workers were sprayed by the fluid, Beasley said, and were taken to Athens-Limestone Hospital for observation. Both workers went back to work Thursday, Beasley said.

TVA's restart of Unit 1 officially began early Tuesday, some 22 years after the plant was shut down for safety reasons. The successful completion of TVA's planning and NRC inspections followed thousands of hours of engineering, construction and modification work. The restart was widely noted and cheered by the nuclear power industry.

That the piping separated so shortly after operation resumed does not suggest that the plant has bigger issues, Widmann said.

"It's kind of normal, the types of trouble you can run into when you've done so much work," Widmann said. "They've got a lot of testing to do, a lot of things they need to address.

"Does this set them back? Yes. Does it change how we approach what they're doing? No."

David Lochbaum, a former TVA employee and nuclear power expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., said starting a nuclear reactor, even after a short fueling outage, often leads to discoveries of problems.

"It seems inconsistent with having spent all that money to get the plant to start up, but, to be fair, it is not uncommon," Lochbaum said. "If a plant has been shut down for a while, you will have a couple of bumps on a restart. You can inspect pipes, walk down the cabling, but until you pressurize the system, the little-bitty stuff is hard to find.

"It's not uncommon for a plant to have a surprise like this."

It is looking like slow and steady is working...

 This is from the Knoxville News : http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/business/article/0,1406,KNS_376_5560288,00.html

By ANDREW EDER, edera@knews.com May 29, 2007

A safety system at the newly restarted Unit 1 reactor at TVA's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant has failed an operational test, but the failure did not prompt a shutdown of the reactor. The high-pressure coolant injection system, which is used to rapidly inject cooling water into the reactor core under certain conditions, was declared inoperable early Monday.

TVA spokesman Terry Johnson said the cooling system is powered by steam from the reactor, but a problem was preventing the system from getting enough steam to operate properly. "As far as we know, it's a minor adjustment, and they need to check that out," Johnson said. Ken Clark, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said an alternate reactor cooling system remained operational, and the test failure was not considered a safety problem, although it was reportable to the NRC under federal regulations.

Plant operators first achieved a nuclear chain reaction in Unit 1 on May 22 after a five-year, $1.8 billion restoration effort. The reactor had been idled since 1985.

Operators are conducting "power ascension" testing — bringing the reactor up to different levels of power while testing various systems — before reconnecting the reactor to TVA's power grid. Last Thursday, a leak in a control system prompted a shutdown of the reactor while it was operating at 3 percent power.

The reactor was holding steady today at 9 percent power.

According to the NRC event record, Tennessee Valley Authority connected Unit 1 to the power grid for the first time in 22 years and after making it to 99-percent power, they had a slight set back.The report TVA filed with the NRC said a turbine malfunction forced TVA to drop power levels to 0 percent Saturday at 11 a.m. Unit 1 had been at 99-percent power Saturday morning. The report filed with the NRC said it was at 79-percent power at the time of the shutdown. "We were doing power ascension testing. Part of that is to see what problems you can find," Browns Ferry spokesman Terry Johnson said. "The plant hasn't been run in a long time, so there's all types of opportunities for things not to go quite as expected." The malfunction occurred when sensors indicated increasing water levels in one of the steam-fed turbines. The turbine shut down automatically to avoid damage from excess water. Steam droplets The turbines, shaped like fans, rotate at 1,800 revolutions per minute, said Johnson. At such high speeds, any water droplets in the steam can cause damage. For that reason, the sensors detect when the droplets have not been separated from the steam before entering the turbines. Steam from the reactor vessel feeds the turbines. When the turbines shut down, not all of the steam produced in the reactor could escape. "It was pretty insignificant," Johnson said. Unit 1's steam pipes have 11 safety relief valves to prevent a dangerous build-up of reactor pressure, according to Dave Lochbaum, formerly a Unit 1 reactor engineer. The relief valves operated properly, dropping the reactor pressure. Lochbaum, now director of nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the event a "bump" in the re-start process, but "not a big bump." Ongoing investigation He said the severity of the issue depends on the result of TVA's ongoing investigation into the cause of the turbine malfunction. TVA investigators also are studying why one system involved in the automatic shutdown of the reactor did not work properly. The faulty system could, in some scenarios, permit water to leak from the reactor. Called a "hot shutdown" or scram, the drop in Unit 1's power levels did not require removal of the fuel rods. Rather, TVA fully inserted neutron absorbers into the reactor vessel, halting the energy-producing fission within the reactor. 

It was a quick fix. They are now back to 100% power.

The shutdown was prompted by a faulty fitting on a sensor that led to an incorrect reading and caused a tank to drain. To prevent steam entering the tank, the reactor's turbine tripped, forcing the automatic shutdown, said Terry Johnson, a Browns Ferry spokesman.

A second problem was identified during the shutdown process. An energy monitor in the core of the reactor failed to withdraw, as it is supposed to during a scram. Johnson said an open circuit was to blame in that case, and the problem has been corrected.

This is great news...lets keep up the momentum..

From a White House Staff report

President George Bush plans to visit the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant on Thursday, a White House official said today.

President Bush will tour the TVA plant in Athens, Ala., Thursday afternoon and make comments about U.S. energy initiatives, White House spokesman Alex Conant said today. The visit comes as the U.S. Senate continues to debate an energy bill this week in Washington D.C.

The presidential visit will help mark the restart of TVA's oldest reactor and the addition of the first reactor to America's nuclear fleet in the 21st century. The unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry was restarted May 22 after a 22-year outage and was operating at full power today, TVA spokesman Terry Johnson said.

The visit will be the first by a U.S. president to a TVA facility since President Jimmy Carter visited TVA's Knoxville headquarters in 1988.

"TVA is pleased that President Bush is visiting Browns Ferry and recognizing the significance of the restart of Unit 1 for TVA, our customers, the nuclear industry and the American people," TVA spokesman John Moulton said.