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TVA Loses Biggest Customer

Brian Stansberry

The Tennessee Valley Authority is losing its biggest customer today. USEC, Inc., is shutting down its Kentucky-based gaseous diffusion plant, ending 1,000 jobs over the next year. USEC Senior Vice President Robert Van Namen tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press rising industrial power rates played a big role in the decision.

USEC, which has enriched uranium for TVA and other utilities since 1952, accounted for about 5 percent, or nearly $600 million, of TVA power sales last year.

"This is a big blow to employment and blow to us as a provider," TVA President Bill Johnson said here Thursday.

TVA spokesman Duncan Mansfield says the agency ranks 38th lowest among the top 100 utilities in America in the average price of electricity.