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       Construction began on the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Generating Station in Hollywood, Alabama in 1975. The site was owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Two reactors were originally planned for the site. Eighty eight percent of reactor 1 construction was accomplished, and fifty eight percent of reactor 2 construction was accomplished with the TVA investing over six billion dollars. But, in 1988, work on the project was halted. Following that, useable equipment was removed from the site and now only fifty five percent of reactor 1 and thirty five percent of reactor 2 remains.
       In 2005, the TVA announced that it had selected the Bellefonte site for the construction of two of the new AP1000 pressurized water reactors. The new reactors would be designated as reactor 3 and reactor 4. In 2006, construction permits for reactors 1 and 2 were cancelled. Subsequently, the TVA studied what would be required to finish the two reactors and concluded that reactor 1 could be completed by 2017 and reactor 2 could be completed by 2021. In late 2007, the TVA filed the necessary applications to begin design and construction of reactors 3 and 4. In 2008, the TVA request that the NRC reinstate the construction permits that had been cancelled two years before for reactors 1 and 2. The NRC did reactivate the permits for reactors 1 and 2 in 2009.  In the fall of 2009, the TVA encountered "falling electric sales and rising costs from cleaning up a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee". As a result, the TVA scaled back their plans to the construction of one reactor at the Bellefonte site.
       In early fall of 2010, the TVA allocated two hundred and forty-eight million dollars for the development of reactor 1 at Bellefonte. A year later, the Board of Directors at the TVA voted to begin the construction of reactor 1. A plan was approved in 2011 to make the restart of construction at Bellefonte contingent on the completion of the TVA Watts Bar 2 reactor in Tennessee. In 2012, they projected that Watts Bar 2 reactor would be completed in 2015.  In the middle of 2013, staffing at Bellefonte was reduced from five hundred and forty to just one hundred and forty. In late 2013, it was announced that a proposal had been drafted to complete the Bellefonte plant with private funds and federal tax credits.
       In 2015, the TVA decided that, given power demand projections, it would be at least twenty years until they needed the power that could be provided by the Bellefonte plant. In 2016, the TVA decided that the Bellefonte site was surplus property and that they would put the site up for auction. Nuclear Development LLC (ND) bought the site at auction for one hundred and ten million dollars. They announced that they were going to complete the two reactors at the site with an investment of thirteen billion dollars. ND has paid TVA twenty-two million dollars in earnest money to date and they have applied for more than eight billion dollars in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy.
       In January of this year, Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) signed a non-binding agreement to purchase electricity from the reactors to be constructed at the Bellefonte site. MLGW says that it wants to wait for a regional energy report that is due in December before deciding whether or not to provide a binding letter of intent to ND. ND responded that unless MLGW signs a binding agreement to buy electricity from Bellefonte in the near future, ND may walk away from the purchase deal with the TVA because the terms of the loans from the DoE require that there be a guaranteed market for the electricity generated at the Bellefonte plant.
      Alabama state officials are very concerned with the recent developments. They were counting on the income from workers at the plant and the purchase of goods and services by the plant from local businessmen to revitalize the struggling economy of the communies near the site. Supporters of completion of the Bellefonte site say that the price of electricity from the plant would be much cheaper than current sources.
      The tortured history of Bellefonte Nuclear Generation Station illustrates why it is so difficult to finance and build nuclear power reactors in the U.S.