Perry Nuclear Power Station operator FirstEnergy can go ahead with plans to use the hotter GNF2 fuel made by Global Nuclear Fuel, federal regulators said.
In a letter dated 27 March 2015, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the fuel which has already been adopted by most reactors similar to the Perry NPP, according to FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young. The plant, which is 35 miles northeast of Cleveland, Ohio, is a 1268 MWe General Electric Type 6 boiling water reactor that first began operating in November 1986. The plant's operating license is currently scheduled to end March 18, 2026.
The plant's refueling shutdown began March 9 with plans to change 280 of 748 fuel assemblies with the high burn-up fuel, which GNF touts as more efficient. In subsequent refueling – the next one scheduled is for 2017 – FirstEnergy should be replacing fewer fuel rods, which cuts down on spent fuel storage and refueling costs.
GNF says the fuel rods, which contain up to 5 percent enriched uranium, increase energy production and remain viable for three-years.
Ernest Harkness, site vice president, said "each fuel rod is designed with different levels of enriched uranium." As such, FirstEnergy will review the performance of the fuel assemblies in 2017 and likely replace 265 during the next outage, Harkness estimated.
The GNF2 fuel is not without controversy. Anti-nuke groups say the longer the fuel rods remain in the reactor core and the hotter storage temperatures of the fuel increase the chance the cladding on the fuel pellets can become brittle, which makes moving the spent fuel riskier.
In contrast, engineer Meraj Rahimi, head of the criticality, shielding and risk assessment in the NRC Division of Spent Fuel Management told the Plain Dealer that the GNF2 fuel rods “cool down so rapidly that after five years the difference between the high burn-up fuel and traditional fuel is not that much in terms of heat and radioactivity.”
FirstEnergy said more than 1,000 temporary workers, including technicians from other FENOC plants, are at the plant for the refueling and maintenance outage, which will include inspection and testing of more than 130 valves, replacement of several control rod blades, inspection and cleaning of tower piping, and installation of a 120-feet tall, 115 ton transformer, which is one of two circuits that provide power from the off-site transmission network to the plant's on-site electrical systems.
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