Innovation and World-Class Workforce Help Shape Energy System of the Future.

When Tim Rausch took the helm at Tennessee Valley Authority’s Nuclear Operations in 2018, the enterprise’s leadership challenged him to make TVA Nuclear Operations an industry leader by 2025.

Drawing on three decades of experience in nuclear operations, he knew immediately what it would require.

A team that universally embraces challenges.

That has a passion for excellence.

A hunger for learning.

And more.

“It’s about setting high expectations and having a team that’s willing to achieve even higher results,” Rausch, TVA Executive Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, said. “You succeed when you build a diverse and inclusive team, where everyone is valued and empowered to improve operational performance driven by a safety culture.”

Now five years into his role, Rausch recognizes the team’s accomplishments of superior safety and reliable performance.

But he also knows this: In the nuclear industry, true excellence is always just out of reach – you can never stop striving to be better every day.

At TVA, nuclear employees take great pride in safely operating the enterprise’s seven nuclear reactors – two each at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants in Tennessee and three in Alabama at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant, the second-largest nuclear plant in the U.S.

Nuclear excellence is a journey, not a destination, Rausch said.

We caught up with him to hear more about TVA’s fleet, its future and some of the opportunities and challenges facing the nuclear industry.

Why did you choose a career in the nuclear industry?

My path to a nuclear career was not linear. I was born and raised in Canton, Ohio, growing up on a lake, where everyone played hockey. You grow up skating. I played on a North American travel team in high school. Played all over North America. I had dreams of a hockey career after college. Having a backup plan, I kept up with school and graduated with honors.

Hockey and my grades led me to the University of Cincinnati, majoring in nuclear engineering. I looked forward to playing college hockey, but the transition to college sports and academics was difficult. I was faced with a big life decision – nuclear engineering or hockey. 

I chose nuclear engineering. In college I did four six-month co-ops, where I had amazing mentors. They taught me everything about nuclear power, human behavior and standards of excellence – valuable knowledge far beyond any textbook. That experience solidified my desire to build a career around this technology. After graduation, my career took me from Ohio to New Jersey, then Pennsylvania, and finally to Tennessee. I currently have the privilege of leading a great team as TVA’s Chief Nuclear Officer.  

What’s the secret to creating a culture of nuclear excellence at TVA?

This reminds me of a quote from Jean Beliveau, who was regarded as one of the 10 greatest NHL players of all time: “Play with passion and heart. If you don’t carry passion into sport – or into any job for that matter – you won’t succeed.”

I have always been a hard worker, dependable and eager to learn. These attributes are important to succeed in life and especially in a nuclear career. However, leadership and creating a nuclear culture of excellence is much more than being highly motivated.

It is about motivating a team to share your vision of excellence. Then stepping out of the way to let them accomplish it. By focusing on growing diverse and non-traditional workforce populations, you can actively engage with the workforce to create critical thinkers and career opportunities – not just jobs.

The team must feel vested in the plant and take pride in its success. In an increasingly technical and dynamic nuclear energy field, it is about creating a work environment that values sharing best practices, expanding the talent pool and giving a voice to everyone to safely improve plant operation.

All that being said, you must keep it simple – for a team or employee to feel vested they also must understand: processes, models, expectations. Keep it simple so they can understand and own it, instead of being burdened. 

To achieve excellence, I tell everyone to start with yourself. It’s like playing hockey – focus on small things you can control and build from there. Success becomes a habit. Then move on to bigger and bigger challenges.

The three themes that I believe are keys to success are:

• Choose your attitude. You are in control of your attitude, your reactions and your effort.
• Be a continuous learner. This is only the beginning of all the skills and knowledge you will build on as you develop.
• Make yourself valuable. Do the hard things, take on challenges.

TVA Nuclear is one of the largest business units in the agency, and I am proud to help make TVA an employer of choice, as recognized by Forbes, GI Jobs, Newsweek, Diversity Inc. and the National Organization on Disabilities. To continue to create a culture of excellence, we must reach younger generations – Millennials, Gen Z and soon Generation Alpha – to educate them about the meaningful, well-paying careers the nuclear industry has to offer.

TVA says it will need to double or triple its generation in the next 30 years. What role will TVA’s nuclear fleet play as the agency builds new generation? 

Let me put the numbers into perspective because they are astonishing. Last year, the U.S. used 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity – that’s 14 times more electricity than we used in 1950. While electric growth is not always linear, the pace over the long term is not slowing as we electrify the economy. Back in 1950, about 2% of the energy Americans used came from electricity. Today, it’s around 22%. And the likelihood is that by 2050, we will double or triple our electricity consumption. So, the TVA energy system we built over the past 90 years will double or triple its capacity in the next two or three decades.

As we build the energy system of the future, TVA’s nuclear team is focusing on three critical elements – workforce, fleet maintenance and innovation.

First, you must build a world-class workforce focused on a continuous improvement culture while always maintaining safety as the highest priority. We are building a pipeline for skilled workers to enter the nuclear industry, providing them with the skills and leadership training to perform at the highest levels. We are also providing career paths to grow and develop top talent to retain workers in our industry.

Second, we need to preserve, leverage and extend our existing nuclear fleet. We are investing to optimize our current fleet to be licensed for 80 years of operation and beyond. That changes the way you plan, operate and maintain nuclear reactors. In the last seven years we have invested in an extended power uprate at Browns Ferry, upgraded equipment and made the plant more efficient to gain an additional 465 megawatts – enough carbon-free energy to power 280,000 homes. We are also planning system upgrades at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants. In the last seven years, we have added a total of 1,400 megawatts of new nuclear energy to the grid.  We have demonstrated that we can safely maintain and operate these plants well into the future.

Finally, nuclear innovation will help TVA add 10,000 megawatts of energy by 2035 and support future energy needs. In February 2022, we announced our New Nuclear Program. We are investing $200 million to provide a disciplined, systematic roadmap for TVA’s exploration of advanced nuclear technology, both in terms of various reactor designs being proposed and potential locations. 

TVA has extensive experience and expertise in building and operating nuclear facilities, and we are uniquely positioned to help lead the small modular reactor (SMR) effort forward. 

What nuclear challenges and opportunities are on the horizon?

Public and private partnerships will be both a challenge and opportunity moving forward. No one company or government can develop and successfully deploy the first-of-a-kind nuclear technology needed to address climate change and achieve our nation’s decarbonization goals.

It will take the ingenuity of private business coupled with federal financing to realize the energy security and decarbonization benefits of advanced nuclear generation in America and around the world.

TVA saw this partnership potential early on. We were the first to form a partnership with Ontario Power Generation, Orlen Synthos Green Energy and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to invest in the development of GE’s BWRX-300 standard design.

Ontario Power Generation is building SMRs at their Darlington site in Canada. TVA is preparing its Clinch River Nuclear Site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for a possible SMR as well. Clinch River is the first and only Nuclear Regulatory Commission early site permit for SMRs in the U.S. We are in the first phase of an initial study to identify locations beyond Clinch River that may be suitable for small modular reactors.

Together, the partners are sharing learnings to improve safety, lower costs and speed deployment.

What can the nuclear industry do to help decarbonize the economy and ensure the nation’s energy security?

There is no single way to reduce carbon emissions. At TVA, we are taking an all-of-the-above approach.

However, nuclear is the only technology at this time that can securely provide dispatchable, carbon-free energy to power America’s new clean economy. We can use existing nuclear plants for base load and deploy small modular reactors to provide reliable and flexible power as we add variable solar to the grid. Nuclear will also reduce the need for fossil fuel plants as more units are deployed. 

TVA is uniquely positioned to lead efforts to support the nation’s energy security without affecting the Valley region’s generation reliability or unreasonably raising energy costs for our customers.

Currently, nearly 60% of TVA’s energy generation is carbon-free. About 40% of TVA’s carbon-free generation comes from nuclear power. Nuclear will play a critical role as TVA works to be net-zero by 2050. 

What is TVA doing to make its service territory a leader in nuclear innovation?

Oak Ridge National Laboratory – home of the Manhattan Project – is in the heart of our region. The Tennessee Valley region has a long history of nuclear innovation that we must build upon. This past summer, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced appointments to the Tennessee Nuclear Energy Advisory Council to position Tennessee as a national leader for nuclear energy innovation and advancement. 

TVA’s Don Moul, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, has been appointed to support this initiative. We will support the council’s work by:

• Reviewing legislative, policy and budgetary changes to address regulatory, workforce or education barriers that exist to the creation and expansion of nuclear energy facilities in Tennessee
• Identifying funding opportunities for state and local governments and the private sector
• Providing solutions for storage and waste practices that continue the state’s long history of conserving Tennessee’s natural resources
• Using our network to pursue federal partners and agencies

As the largest public power utility in the nation, TVA will use its expertise to build on our region’s nuclear innovation and drive continued investment to create a nuclear energy ecosystem for the future of Tennessee, including business development.

Like what we did with electric vehicles and battery manufacturing – our region is No. 1 in the nation.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Overall, the nuclear industry’s future is bright. While there are many challenges on the horizon, TVA and our nuclear peers have a history of fixing complex issues. Deploying nuclear power to solve one of the world’s most complex problems – decarbonization – is an exciting and significant opportunity for our industry to provide tremendous benefits to the world.