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Bruce Power one more step closer to bringing Units 1 and 2 back on-line By Liz Dadson |
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Bruce Power is one more step closer to restarting Units 1 and 2 at the Bruce A generating station. During a conference call yesterday (Nov. 23), the company's president and chief executive officer, Duncan Hawthorne, said he was pleased that approval was received Tuesday (Nov. 22) from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to begin loading fuel bundles into Unit 1. This procedure has already been completed in Unit 2. Tuesday night, workers began loading fuel into Unit 1. Over the next few weeks, operators will manually install 5,760 fuel bundles into 480 fuel channels on the reactor face. Roughly the size of a fire log, each 22-kilogram bundle can produce enough energy to power 100 homes for a year. The fuel-loading of Unit 1 marks the final commissioning phase of the Bruce A Restart project. "This is a significant milestone in the restart project," said Hawthorne, "as we move into the final stages of returning these units to service in 2012." Once restarted, the two units will produce 1,500 megawatts of affordable, safe and reliable nuclear power. The reactors have been undergoing a first-of-a-kind refurbishment, and the project has represented the largest investment in CANDU technology in a generation, by Bruce Power. Hawthorne said one of the main challenges is managing the proximity of the two units. While Unit 2 is being returned to service first, Unit 1 won't be far behind, he said, because the same work is basically being repeated in the second refurbished unit. Unit 2 is now in the control of the operational side, and soon Unit 1 will switch from construction to operational, gearing up for restart early next year. Hawthorne said the fuel loading of Unit 1 should be completed by mid-December. "Every evolution of Unit 1 has already been done in Unit 2, so we're closing the time lapse between the two units." The next step will be a request for a Removal of Shut-down Guarantee, said Hawthorne. Currently, the units are in an Over-Poisoned Guarantee Safety Shut-down, he said. "Over-Poisoned" means there are extra safety mechanisms in place, similar to having a foot brake and a hand brake in a car. Once the removal has been approved, Bruce Power can begin warming up the systems, likely before Christmas time, and begin powering up the units in time for a return to service in the first quarter of 2012, said Hawthorne. Unit 2 will be restarted first, followed in about two to three months, by Unit 1, he said. "This is the culmination of a lot of hard work and the quality of workmanship is a credit to the many people who worked on the program," said Hawthorne. Once all eight units are operating, the site will be producing 6,300 megawatts, roughly one-quarter of the province's electricity. With all this electricity being produced, Hawthorne was asked about transmission capacity to move it from the Bruce Nuclear plant. "We have confidence that the transmission line (from Bruce to Milton) is going to be there when we need it," he said. "I can't speak for Hydro One but there is a contractual deadline of not before the end of 2012 for completion of the transmission line, but we're working on the basis that the transmission will be there when we need it." Hawthorne said nuclear operators around the world are watching this restart project closely because there are a lot of nuclear plants coming to end of their lifespan. Many operators are looking at refurbishment rather than new build, he said.
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 While the restart project is over-budget and delayed by about two years, Hawthorne said Bruce Power is breaking new ground in the nuclear industry and has learned a lot in the process which will help other operators. When Bruce Power took over the Bruce site in 2001, only four units were operating, he said. Within two to three years, it had restarted Units 3 and 4 at a cost of $550-million. The restart of Units 1 and 2 is a $4.8-billion investment, said Hawthorne, and the provincial government has supported the refurbishment of the remaining units at the site. However, he said, these will not be massive projects as was undertaken with Units 1 and 2. "Yes, the restart project is over-budget and that's painful for me to admit," said Hawthorne, "but this is one-of-a-kind work. The cost over-run was in the time lost in the disassembly and reassembly of the reactor vessel." He said Bruce Power developed robotic tools to handle these highly-radioactive components but the time factor depended on how many fuel channels could be changed per day. There are 960 channels in total, so if 10 could be done per day, it would take 96 days, but if only three could be done per day, the project would take a lot longer. "Our initial assumptions were very optimistic," he said. As for employment, Hawthorne said there are 2,000 contractors working on the restart project right now and those numbers will decrease as the project winds down. However, there are 800 contractors required for the refurbishment of Unit 3, and there are always some contractors and extra workers required for planned outages, he said. Once all eight units are running at the Bruce site, Bruce Power will employ a total of 4,250 people to operate them. That's up from the 2,980 employees running the plant in 2001. Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area. You can click on the ads for more
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