Nuclear Street - Nuclear Power Plant News, Jobs, and Careers

Nuclear power has drawn a lot of attention in Florida in recent days. On Tuesday Progress Energy faced questions from state regulators regarding costs passed on to customers for its new Levy plant, while a valve failure prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to begin a special inspection at Florida Power and Light's Turkey Point reactor the same day.

The state’s Office of Public Counsel has asked the Florida Public Service commission to sharply reduce the advance payments customers contribute to the Levy plant’s construction, citing delays and uncertainty over completion of the project. Progress Energy intends to build two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the site just north of its Crystal River plant. Although regulatory delays and other issues pushed the completion date from 2016 to 2021, Progress has said it is committed to Levy and the new schedule. The estimated cost has increased from $4 billion to $22.5 billion since the project was announced. A Florida law passed in 2006 allows utilities to charge customers for plants under construction, but those charges must be approved by the PSC. Florida Power and Light was the subject of a similar hearing last week, although most of its construction charge goes toward existing reactors.

Meanwhile, the NRC announced its staff began inspecting Turkey Point Unit 3 after its intake cooling water system lost functionality for 20 minutes on Thursday.

According to an NRC report, plant workers heard a loud bang as a manual 24-inch butterfly valve malfunctioned. Per the report: “Loss of function occurred when manual valve 3-50-406, Intake Cooling Water/Component Cooling Water Heat Exchanger Outlet Valve, failed closed. Valve 3-50-406 is located in the common discharge line preventing flow through both ICW headers to the CCW heat exchangers.”

Plant staff manually opened bypass valves to restore full cooling water flow. The reactor is now stable and operating at full power, but the NRC said in a release that it initiated the inspection because the failure resulted in the temporary loss of a safety system and because the event may indicate a potential generic concern.