The Tennessee Valley Authority said Thursday its board has approved a $4.9 billion plan to complete a nuclear unit at its Bellefonte site in Alabama, a power facility partially completed and then shelved for decades.

The announcement by the TVA, the nation's largest public power provider, comes in the midst of touchy sentiment about nuclear power following March's radiation crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, which suffered a partial meltdown after a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

TVA...