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If the new turbine lumbering down Alstom’s production line were a car, it would be a great big SUV. “We make the biggest possible turbines in the world,” says Stephane Cai, CEO of Alstom Power Turbomachines, LLC. “We build Hummers.”

Alstom, a French company known for bullet trains and the Queen Elizabeth 2, will ship its CEO, Patrick Kron, and other executives to Chattanooga later this month to show off its new state-of-the-art, 350,000-square-foot, LEED-certified “green” giant turbine factory on the Tennessee River.

Guests including Governor Phil Bredesen, Alstom Power President Philippe Joubert and community leaders like Mayor Ron Littlefield and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey made the guest list, says Cai. Entertainment, tours and other events will be offered for the community, company employees, customers, shareholders, prospective stock buyers and a bevy of international business journalists.

For Tennessee job seekers, 350 new positions may seem cause enough to celebrate. Yet the event could mark an even greater watershed. “We see Alstom anchoring our bid to be a hub for the nuclear power generation sector,” says J. Ed. Marston, marketing vice president for the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce. “We were pretty big in nuclear energy in the 1970s and 80s, and we believe we can achieve that leadership again.”

Alstom’s $280 million investment is less than the billion-dollar price tag for the new Volkswagen factory in Bonny Oaks, he notes. Yet its impact may, in time, outstrip that of the automaker. “This is an arena where we see great potential,” Marston says.

In 1945, President Charles de Gaulle also staked his people’s future on the spinning atom. He founded a research institute that led, in time, to near energy independence for his nation. Today, France produces 80 percent of its electricity in its 59 nuclear plants and ships nearly 20 percent of its nuclear power to the rest of Europe.

America, too, began a post-war flirtation with fission. But after building more than 100 plants through the 1970s, passions cooled. Nuclear plants proved costly to build, unprofitable to run. Since 1973, no new nuclear plants have been built here.

In the past decade, though, soaring fuel prices and global warming concerns catalyzed energy companies to upgrade, restart or build new nuclear plants. The Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, brought its Athens, Ala. plant online three years ago. It now seeks to add a unit in Spring City, Tenn. and restart construction in Hollywood, Ala. A $8.2 billion loan guarantee for the Southern Company to build a new nuclear power facility near Augusta, Ga. — the first in decades — was issued by the Obama administration just four months ago.

Alstom, equipment supplier to one-third of the nuclear plants in the world, felt the heat, says Cai. A disadvantageous exchange rate, import tariffs and distance, however, prevented the company from “competing on equal footing” in the expanding American market.

Three years ago, the company began to build a beachhead on the Tennessee shores. At their existing steam boiler factory, once owned by Combustion Engineering, Alstom proposed to add a 350,000-square-foot, $280 million, LEED certified “green” turbine factory. This facility would produce steam and gas turbines for nuclear and coal plants, retrofitting old plants for greater energy efficiency and meeting demand for new nuclear plants.

Despite the city and county’s carrot of $21 million in tax breaks, Chattanooga almost lost out to Richmond, Va., says Cai. The two were in contention for months. In its favor, Chattanooga offered a 1,000-ton capacity barge dock. Against the deal, neighboring Aerisyn, a wind turbine manufacturer, had to be persuaded to move to make room for the new plant.

After long negotiation, “I didn’t have the feeling they were going to sign,” recalls Cai. At the eleventh hour, he tapped Mayor Ron Littlefield and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey for a Hail Mary play. “I asked them to come to my office to meet with Aerisyn right away,” he says. “When they arrived, I told them we had an agreement. So Aerisyn had to sign,” he recalls, smiling. “The cooperation from the mayors was most unusual.”

Community leaders’ unusual efforts to secure that expansion paid off, says Marston. The Chamber calculates the total economic impact of the new Alstom factory at $42.8 million per year. Since the 2008 announcement, he notes, Westinghouse built a $25 million nuclear reactor training unit and Burns and Roe, a New Jersey engineering firm, added an office here. “We’ve had a ton of activity in this arena at a time when the national economy has been very poor,” says Marston.

Besides economics, Alstom has also kept an eye on the environment, Cai adds. “We’re a clean energy company,” he says. “We want coherence between the purpose of our business and the way we manage our own operations.” The bill for Alstom’s energy efficient improvements totaled $10 million, he adds. Hundreds of thousands of square feet of asbestos siding were removed, replaced with insulating material. Today, hundreds of skylights scudder across the roof of an azure building, an underground cistern holds water for irrigation, an HVAC system recycles waste heat from manufacturing and an extensive green space includes a “Central Park.”

Alstom’s core workforce at the plant hails from around the globe. But in the next “recruitment wave,” he adds, more jobs will open up for locals. Alstom’s chief financial officer was recruited from Fort Payne, Ala., notes Cai, and his Human Resources manager, production planning manager and maintenance employees also lived in the Scenic City. In time, the engineering staff of 30 to 50 persons will open its ranks to trainees, including recent college grads.

As for Alstom’s business prospects, Cai foresees steady growth. Currently, he has orders to fill that will keep the plant busy through 2015. While energy, like most industries, suffers from fads, he expects Alstom’s global leadership in nuclear turbine technology, its superior gas turbine and its skill in retrofitting coal plants to produce continued demand for his product.

The first shipment — a replacement rotor for a large American utility company — is set for January, 2011. The factory will start producing turbine casings (a rotor is like a jet engine whirling in an oval tube; the casings are the tubes) in spring of next year. In time, up to 30 shiny dynamos — big as horse barns and weighing 250 tons — will be lifted by cranes onto barges and sent down river every year.

The United States’ fleet of nuclear plants is aging “and it’s the largest in the world,” says Cai. “Every year we see a number of opportunities. The United States is a big market.”

ABOUT ALSTOM IN CHATTANOOGA

PRODUCING 350 NEW JOBS BY 2011

AN ESTIMATED $42.6 MILLION ECONOMIC IMPACT PER YEAR

MAKES THE WORLD’S LARGEST TURBINE: 35-FEET LONG AND 15-FEET TALL, WEIGHING 250 TONS

USES THE LARGEST HORIZONTAL TURNING LATHE IN THE INDUSTRY AND THE LARGEST ROTOR BALANCING FACILITY IN THE WORLD

ABOUT ALSTOM

OPERATES IN 70 COUNTRIES

$24.2 BILLION IN SALES

76,500 EMPLOYEES

INSTALLED MORE THAN 178 NUCLEAR TURBINE SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE.

MORE THAN 30 PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S NUCLEAR PLANTS USE ALSTOM EQUIPMENT

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