WASHINGTON — A cloud of disappointment settled over Aiken on Thursday after the NuStart Energy consortium chose locations in Alabama and Mississippi — and not the Savannah River Site — for what could be the first two American nuclear power plants built in a generation.

But as much as S.C. nuclear boosters touted SRS for a new plant, they also recognized some undeniable advantages offered by one of the winning sites: the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bellefonte nuclear plant in northeast Alabama.

“In our mind, the competition all along was Bellefonte,” said Fred Humes, director of the Aiken-Edgefield Economic Development Partnership.

SRS — a 310-square-mile federal nuclear campus near Aiken that houses a national laboratory — offers much nuclear know-how. If a NuStart plant were to be licensed and built — a process that could take more than a 10 years — it would have meant about 2,000 temporary jobs and 250 to 400 permanent jobs for SRS.

But those who know SRS best were not completely surprised by the decision that NuStart announced Thursday in Washington — that those jobs are to go elsewhere.

The federal TVA, the nation’s largest public power provider, boasts a network of transmission lines that extends far beyond what SRS can offer.

“We would have to have made additions to our system. If we had to negotiate for right-of-ways, that would have been another obstacle to overcome,” Humes said.

Then there was the matter of energy buyers. NuStart preferred to locate where the market for electricity generated by a nuclear plant was a surety.

“One of the important things for us was to sell all the electricity in advance,” said Mal McKibben, formerly an SRS scientist and now the executive director of Aiken-based Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness.

SRS did manage to cobble together agreements with regional power companies to purchase between 75 to 80 percent of what a new nuclear plant at SRS would produce, Humes said.

But the TVA is a wholesaler of power and already provides energy to 158 distributors who serve 8.6 million consumers in seven states.

“Right now, they are required to buy all their power from TVA,” said John Moulton, a spokesman for the TVA. “We have a competitive market for our power. “

There also was the matter of building the plant — at a cost of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

Though Moulton said the agreement is not settled, it is expected that TVA would partner with other investors to make the deal work. SRS could make no such claim.

NuStart’s other winning location is the site of Entergy Nuclear’s Grand Gulf nuclear plant in Mississippi. The choice was not a surprise to many who have been following the competition, in that Entergy is a major player in the NuStart consortium.

The other site not chosen was River Bend in St. Francisville, La. Two other sites — in Maryland and New York — had dropped out earlier in the competition.

NuStart, a consortium of 11 energy companies including Duke Energy of Charlotte, formed in 2004 to take advantage of several new federal initiatives aimed at reducing the time and cost involved in licensing and building nuclear power plants.

U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., of Westminster, whose district includes SRS, said those disappointed by the NuStart decision should note that the consortium deemed SRS an “excellent choice” for a plant in the future.

“It’s not the end of the road,” he said.

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com