nuclear-news

AREVA supplying parts to attempt to re-start damaged nuclear reactor

FirstEnergy to place lid on Davis-Besse nuclear power plant cleveland.com, June 21, 2010, “………Davis-Besse has been shut down since Feb. 28 for extensive work to repair cracks in the lid that sprouted unexpectedly in critical components. Such cracks can allow radioactive coolant into the reactor’s containment building — or worse.

Federal rules require an immediate shutdown if leaks are detected.The cracks are similar to fissures that opened up in the late 1990s in parts of Davis-Besse’s original lid and led to a pineapple-sized corrosion hole in that lid before it was discovered in 2004
FirstEnergy replaced the reactor’s original lid in 2004 with an old-but-never-used lid from an identical reactor in Michigan that had never been finished.

The purchase from French-based AREVA Corp. for a sum FirstEnergy refused to disclose is not expected to increase consumer electric rates because the cost of electricity is now set by auctions………….

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has not given permission for the company to restart Davis-Besse, had questioned the proposed operating schedule and had demanded many more costly inspections over the next four years……..

NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng described the discussions between FirstEnergy and the agency as “intense,” indicating that the NRC engineers and reactor experts were worried about the cracks appearing so quickly in the reactor lid since its installation in 2004 and concerned about their potential rate of growth from tiny flaws into potentially something very dangerous.

“In the course of our discussions with the company, we did not agree the plant should operate for that many months,” said Mitlyng, referring to a company proposal earlier this month to operate the reactor for 21 months without an inspection shutdown…………. FirstEnergy to place lid on Davis-Besse nuclear power plant | cleveland.com

June 22, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear technology, nuclear wastes, radioactive, reactor, reactors, uranium