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Plant Updates Humming Along: Nuclear Facility Receiving Upgrades

Posted on: Thursday, 16 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Dave Scott, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Mar. 16--Lew Myers, $320 million and a high-powered water saw are bringing a FirstEnergy nuclear power plant into the digital age.

Thirty years ago, when the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station opened across the Ohio-Pennsylvania line, engineers did not anticipate today's advances in nuclear plant technology.

"All of those plants were built with slide rules back then," said Myers, FirstEnergy's executive vice president of special projects.

On Wednesday, workers toiled to install state-of-the-art generators and a new reactor vessel head, the same type of reactor cover that nearly failed at the Davis-Besse Nuclear plant in Oak Harbor, west of Cleveland.

Officially, Unit 1 at Beaver Valley is being shut down for a refueling, but the work is a massive, multimillion dollar upgrade.

-- The new reactor head and generators were built with metal technology that didn't exist in 1976. That means they should be able to resist corrosion better than the old equipment.

-- Devices used in 1976 measured in parts per million. Many of the new devices measure in parts per trillion.

-- Scientific advances have allowed the company to make the steam generators as much as 9 percent more efficient, which means the turbines will be able to make more power.

-- The improved design on the reactor head will reduce time needed for future refueling, decreasing the plant's downtime during maintenance.

Designers of the original plant didn't even anticipate a renovation like the $300 million project. Doors into the new plant were not big enough to bring in the new equipment so contractors had to cut a 65-foot hole in the containment chamber.

And cutting the hole was no easy task. The walls are 4 feet of special condensed concrete. More than 1,000 pieces of rebar had to be cut. The cutting was done using a jet of water accelerated with 20,000 pounds of pressure.

The reactor head and generators were made in Spain and arrived by barge in October. The plant shut down for the refueling and renovation on Feb. 15 and the project is expected to be done in May.

The work is about half finished. The old reactor head and the generators have been removed and placed in a large concrete storage area on the plant's grounds. The new reactor head is in place and two of the three generators are in the containment chamber. The various water tubes and other devices are being attached. The turbine will not be replaced.

The last generator will be lifted into the chamber today, weather permitting. The job has been delayed two days because of high winds. The generators are 15 feet in diameter, 68 feet long and weigh 368 tons, but Myers explained that they have so much surface area, high winds can blow them around.

"You don't want them hitting anything," he said.

This will be the last job for Myers. He has worked for a variety of companies in his 40-year career and came to FirstEnergy in 1997. He has worked at the Perry nuclear power plant and was broughtin to oversee the Davis-Besse plant when a hole was discovered in the reactor head there.

Planning for the project began in 2000 and Myers said even the smallest details can take time.

"It's an art just looking for all the metals you need," he said.

And timing is crucial. The longer the plant is down, the less electricity is generated. Myers estimated the payroll at this point in the project is more than $1 million a day for about 2,000 workers.

Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

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Source: Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio)

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