- Edited By Tom Lamar -
According to news reports, Crystal River is scheduled to restart in late march after an extended outage to repair the containment building. The unit has been shut since September 2009 to refuel and replace the giant steam generators, work that originally had been expected to take three months.
However, about one month into the outage, contractors discovered a gap in the 42-inch (107 cm) thick containment building wall which had been opened to allow removal and replacement of the steam generators.
Progress determined that the gap in the wall was caused by initial work to release tension on the structural cables that reinforce the concrete wall.
Progress spokesman Mike Hughes said the work to retighten about 200 tendons in the wall is "highly orchestrated" and will be completed in two steps. First, the tendons will be tightened to about 50 percent; then tightened fully.
Other tests need to be carried out related to refueling the reactor and the new steam generators before the unit can begin to produce power.
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