Retrofits Juice Up Old Nuke Reactors
Aug 14 - The Orlando Sentinel
> By Kevin Spear, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
>
> The operators of a nuclear-power plant built more than three
> decades ago to generate electricity for as many as a half-million
> Central Florida homes will soon shut down their reactor.
>
> Once they do, the Progress Energy unit -- on the Gulf of Mexico
> near Crystal River and about 85 miles from Orlando -- will remain cold
> for an unusually long time, until Christmas. An army of welders,
> electricians and nuclear technicians will insert 76 new bundles of
> fuel into the Crystal River reactor, each one costing $1 million and
> weighing 1,516 pounds. More significantly, workers will perform what
> amount to major organ transplants on the plant.
>
> The price of the overhaul will approach $300 million, or as much
> as it costs to build a smaller, non-nuclear-power plant.
>
> But once it's restarted, the reactor will be capable of churning
> out considerably more power, a boost the industry calls an "uprate,"
> and of running for decades longer than originally envisioned.
>
> Progress Energy and the several other utilities that own small
> fractions of the plant -- Orlando Utilities Commission among them --
> will have taken part in a stealth expansion of the nation's
> nuclear-energy output.
>
> "A power uprate is by far the best deal for the customer," said
> Jon Franke, the Progress vice president in charge of the Crystal River
> Nuclear Plant.
>
> Nuclear energy remains hotly debated, with questions about its
> huge costs, radioactive waste and ability to help solve climate change
> all far from resolved. But even outspoken opponents of nuclear power
> acknowledge that uprates and plant-life extensions are a good deal for
> utilities.
>
> The 32-year-old Crystal River plant, for example, originally cost
> $410 million -- or $1.4 billion in current dollars when adjusted for
> inflation.
> That debt was erased long ago, and the plant, along with the nation's
> 103 other utility reactors, pumps out some of the cheapest electricity
> on the grid.
>
> "These are real money machines," said Tom Cochran, senior
> scientist in the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense
> Council.
>
> Another reason utilities nurture their nuclear plants is they
> aren't sure when they will be able to build new ones. Construction
> peaked in the 1970s and then stagnated because of the reactor
> meltdowns at Three Mile Island, Pa., in 1979 and in Chernobyl,
> Ukraine, in 1986. Also, ruinous cost overruns scared away investors.
>
> In 1975, Progress Energy -- then called Florida Power Corp. --
> cited soaring construction costs when it dropped plans to install two
> reactors 28 miles from downtown Orlando in southeast Orange County.
>
> Now, in what has been called a nuclear renaissance, utilities are
> pushing to build a new generation of what they tout as safer and
> simpler plants. But applications for more than two dozen reactors are
> being opposed at every step in the approval process.
>
> Progress, for example, wants to build a new nuke plant in Levy
> County, not far from the Crystal River unit. The project, with
> transmission lines, has been priced at $17 billion -- which is equal
> to more than half of the company's combined assets in Florida and the
> Carolinas.
>
> "The reality is we're focused on new-reactor development," said
> Sara Barczak of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a group that
> opposes new plants but has not sought to block uprates or life
> extensions in Florida by Progress Energy or the state's other big
> electric utility, Florida Power & Light Co.
>
> Edwin Lyman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned
> Scientists, said his group isn't opposed to all nuclear-plant
> overhauls. But he thinks the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not
> alert enough to the unknown kinds of plant failure related to aging --
> such as the unexpected and severe corrosion discovered in 2002 at an
> Ohio nuclear plant.
>
> So far, the NRC has extended the operating licenses for about
> half of the nation's nuclear plants from their original 40-year
> periods to 60 years.
> It has not denied a single extension request. The agency is reviewing
> Progress Energy's pending application for a 20-year extension at
> Crystal River.
>
> "It's a no-brainer," said Tony Pietrangelo, senior vice president
> of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. "That's why
> we fully expect all 104 existing reactors in the country will seek
> license renewal."
>
> Pietrangelo said the industry even hopes to persuade the NRC to
> consider running plants until they are 80 years old.
>
> The NRC bases its decision to extend a plant's license partly on
> how well the utility monitors for corrosion, metal fatigue from
> pressure and heat, and brittleness caused by the intense radiation in
> the reactor's core.
> Another element is the utility's willingness to replace expensive
> parts -- something Progress Energy is about to do at the Crystal River
> plant.
>
> Tight security Most noticeable to visitors entering the plant
> these days are the security measures, which include razor-wire fences,
> a quasi-military guard force and Sandra, a security escort who cradled
> an assault rifle and wore a semiautomatic pistol on her hip as she
> kept tabs on two visiting journalists. Next-most apparent is the high
> level of activity, which includes the parking of equipment crates and
> the early arrivals among the several thousand temporary workers who
> will soon take over the plant.
>
> The workers' single biggest task will be to cut an opening 25
> feet by
> 27 feet through the reactor's containment building. That means sawing
> through blast-resistant material, including 3 1/2 feet of high-
> strength concrete, steel reinforcement bars as thick as tennis-racket
> grips, and a steel plate nearly a half-inch thick.
>
> Once that's done, the work force will extract a beast of a
> component called a steam generator. Its 15,000 tubes must withstand
> radioactive water heated to nearly 600 degrees and steam pressures
> that exceed 2,000 pounds per square inch. The one at Crystal River is
> due for retirement.
>
> Replacing the steam generator is vital if the plant is to last 60
> years or more. Other overlapping tasks, which began in 2007 and won't
> wind up until 2011, will increase the plant's power output. Those
> changes will include better electronics, more-efficient turbine blades
> and -- for the biggest jump in output -- more-potent fuel.
>
> When it's all done, the Crystal River plant output will have
> increased from 838 megawatts to 1,018 megawatts, or enough to meet the
> demand of 110,700 more homes
>
> Kevin Spear can be reached at [email protected] or
> 407-420-5062.
> By Kevin Spear, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
>
> The operators of a nuclear-power plant built more than three
> decades ago to generate electricity for as many as a half-million
> Central Florida homes will soon shut down their reactor.
>
> Once they do, the Progress Energy unit -- on the Gulf of Mexico
> near Crystal River and about 85 miles from Orlando -- will remain cold
> for an unusually long time, until Christmas. An army of welders,
> electricians and nuclear technicians will insert 76 new bundles of
> fuel into the Crystal River reactor, each one costing $1 million and
> weighing 1,516 pounds. More significantly, workers will perform what
> amount to major organ transplants on the plant.
>
> The price of the overhaul will approach $300 million, or as much
> as it costs to build a smaller, non-nuclear-power plant.
>
> But once it's restarted, the reactor will be capable of churning
> out considerably more power, a boost the industry calls an "uprate,"
> and of running for decades longer than originally envisioned.
>
> Progress Energy and the several other utilities that own small
> fractions of the plant -- Orlando Utilities Commission among them --
> will have taken part in a stealth expansion of the nation's
> nuclear-energy output.
>
> "A power uprate is by far the best deal for the customer," said
> Jon Franke, the Progress vice president in charge of the Crystal River
> Nuclear Plant.
>
> Nuclear energy remains hotly debated, with questions about its
> huge costs, radioactive waste and ability to help solve climate change
> all far from resolved. But even outspoken opponents of nuclear power
> acknowledge that uprates and plant-life extensions are a good deal for
> utilities.
>
> The 32-year-old Crystal River plant, for example, originally cost
> $410 million -- or $1.4 billion in current dollars when adjusted for
> inflation.
> That debt was erased long ago, and the plant, along with the nation's
> 103 other utility reactors, pumps out some of the cheapest electricity
> on the grid.
>
> "These are real money machines," said Tom Cochran, senior
> scientist in the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense
> Council.
>
> Another reason utilities nurture their nuclear plants is they
> aren't sure when they will be able to build new ones. Construction
> peaked in the 1970s and then stagnated because of the reactor
> meltdowns at Three Mile Island, Pa., in 1979 and in Chernobyl,
> Ukraine, in 1986. Also, ruinous cost overruns scared away investors.
>
> In 1975, Progress Energy -- then called Florida Power Corp. --
> cited soaring construction costs when it dropped plans to install two
> reactors 28 miles from downtown Orlando in southeast Orange County.
>
> Now, in what has been called a nuclear renaissance, utilities are
> pushing to build a new generation of what they tout as safer and
> simpler plants. But applications for more than two dozen reactors are
> being opposed at every step in the approval process.
>
> Progress, for example, wants to build a new nuke plant in Levy
> County, not far from the Crystal River unit. The project, with
> transmission lines, has been priced at $17 billion -- which is equal
> to more than half of the company's combined assets in Florida and the
> Carolinas.
>
> "The reality is we're focused on new-reactor development," said
> Sara Barczak of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a group that
> opposes new plants but has not sought to block uprates or life
> extensions in Florida by Progress Energy or the state's other big
> electric utility, Florida Power & Light Co.
>
> Edwin Lyman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned
> Scientists, said his group isn't opposed to all nuclear-plant
> overhauls. But he thinks the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not
> alert enough to the unknown kinds of plant failure related to aging --
> such as the unexpected and severe corrosion discovered in 2002 at an
> Ohio nuclear plant.
>
> So far, the NRC has extended the operating licenses for about
> half of the nation's nuclear plants from their original 40-year
> periods to 60 years.
> It has not denied a single extension request. The agency is reviewing
> Progress Energy's pending application for a 20-year extension at
> Crystal River.
>
> "It's a no-brainer," said Tony Pietrangelo, senior vice president
> of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. "That's why
> we fully expect all 104 existing reactors in the country will seek
> license renewal."
>
> Pietrangelo said the industry even hopes to persuade the NRC to
> consider running plants until they are 80 years old.
>
> The NRC bases its decision to extend a plant's license partly on
> how well the utility monitors for corrosion, metal fatigue from
> pressure and heat, and brittleness caused by the intense radiation in
> the reactor's core.
> Another element is the utility's willingness to replace expensive
> parts -- something Progress Energy is about to do at the Crystal River
> plant.
>
> Tight security Most noticeable to visitors entering the plant
> these days are the security measures, which include razor-wire fences,
> a quasi-military guard force and Sandra, a security escort who cradled
> an assault rifle and wore a semiautomatic pistol on her hip as she
> kept tabs on two visiting journalists. Next-most apparent is the high
> level of activity, which includes the parking of equipment crates and
> the early arrivals among the several thousand temporary workers who
> will soon take over the plant.
>
> The workers' single biggest task will be to cut an opening 25
> feet by
> 27 feet through the reactor's containment building. That means sawing
> through blast-resistant material, including 3 1/2 feet of high-
> strength concrete, steel reinforcement bars as thick as tennis-racket
> grips, and a steel plate nearly a half-inch thick.
>
> Once that's done, the work force will extract a beast of a
> component called a steam generator. Its 15,000 tubes must withstand
> radioactive water heated to nearly 600 degrees and steam pressures
> that exceed 2,000 pounds per square inch. The one at Crystal River is
> due for retirement.
>
> Replacing the steam generator is vital if the plant is to last 60
> years or more. Other overlapping tasks, which began in 2007 and won't
> wind up until 2011, will increase the plant's power output. Those
> changes will include better electronics, more-efficient turbine blades
> and -- for the biggest jump in output -- more-potent fuel.
>
> When it's all done, the Crystal River plant output will have
> increased from 838 megawatts to 1,018 megawatts, or enough to meet the
> demand of 110,700 more homes
>
> Kevin Spear can be reached at [email protected] or
> 407-420-5062.