FirstEnergy has begun a $600 million steam generator replacement at its Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. While elsewhere in the Midwest, federal regulators have approved uprates for five other reactors.At Davis-Besse, the Toledo Blade reported that roughly 2,300 additional workers are joining the plant's staff of 700 to replace the steam generators and refuel the unit. The steam generators were manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox in Canada, and their installation at the plant near Toledo will inject an estimated $108 million into the local economy.Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that DTE Energy and Exelon received approval to increase the power of five other reactors in the region. At unit 2 of DTE's Fermi plant south of Detroit, regulators approved a 1.6 percent power uprate facilitated by more accurate means of measuring feedwater flow. The NRC also said it granted permission for similar uprates to boost the power at Exelon's Braidwood and Byron plants in Illinois. The plants' four reactors will be allowed to increase their power by 1.63 percent, according to an NRC release. Together, the five uprates announced Monday will add nearly 100 megawatts of generation capacity to the grid.
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I hope they gets these right unlike a recent snafu.
I hope they have the lesson learned on hand at SONGS and CRYSTAL RIVER .....The prevailing style of Steam Generator Replacement engineering management must undergo transformation to be safe and to increase safety and redefine what level of protection of public health is regarded as adequate and to protect the public catastrophic event such as Fukishima.
Existing Steam Generator Replacement Engineering system management cannot understand itself. The development of the new design requires transformation view from outside, the need to reevaluate and upgrade as necessary the design-basis protection of structures, systems and components for each operating reactor and reconfirms that design basis every 10 years that will address any new and significant information. Update the design basis documents for system component important to safety to defend against the restructured hazards.
