Tag: nuclear power

NRC’s Requirements Following Entergy’s Announcement Palisades Will Cease Operation

Viktoria Mitlyng
Senior Public Affairs Officer
Region III

Entergy announced last week it would permanently shut down its Palisades Nuclear Plant on October 1, 2018. The facility, located in Covert, Mich., has been in operation since 1971 and is licensed to operate until 2031.

palisades_smallThe NRC was not involved in the decision, which the company said was based on business and financial factors. Our single focus as an independent regulator is on the safety of nuclear plants, the public and the environment.

However, once any announcement about closure is made, the NRC becomes engaged and the company has to meet our requirements for permanently shutting down an operating reactor.

The first step in this process requires Entergy to make a written Certification of Permanent Cessation of Operations to the NRC within 30 days from announcing its decision to permanently take the plant off line.

Should Entergy decide to continue operating the plant beyond the date stated in the certification, it would have to notify the NRC in writing.

As long as the plant is operating, we will continue to independently verify Palisades is meeting NRC’s stringent requirements. These requirements will remain in place until all fuel is removed from the reactor and the NRC has the company’s certifications of permanent cessation of operation and permanent fuel removal. At that point in the process, Entergy is no longer authorized to put new fuel into the reactor or resume plant operation.

The plant then enters the NRC’s well-established decommissioning process  geared towards ensuring the continued safe use of nuclear material, and the safety of nuclear workers and the public. Decommissioning must be completed within 60 years of the plant ceasing operations.

Nuclear plant operators are required to plan for the ultimate decommissioning of the plant before it begins operations by establishing and maintaining a dedicated decommissioning fund. These funds – created to ensure there will be sufficient money to pay for a plant’s radiological decommissioning — cannot be used for any other purpose unless the NRC grants an exemption.

Operating plants must maintain the required levels established by the NRC  and certify that there is reasonable assurance there will be adequate decommissioning funds, at least every two years while the plant is operating and more frequently after it ceases operations. The NRC reviewed the decommissioning funding status report  for Palisades in 2015 and found that it met our requirements.

REFRESH — Where There’s Steam, There’s … a Steam Generator

Kenneth Karwoski
Senior Advisor for Steam Generators

refresh leafWhen the NRC talks about “steam generators,” we’re not talking about teakettles. Steam generators provide vital technical and safety functions at many U.S. nuclear power plants.

In the United States, steam generators are only found in pressurized-water reactors, one of the two types of U.S. reactors. There can be two to four steam generators for each reactor unit. The generators mark the spot where two closed loops of piping meet. The first loop sends water past the reactor core to carry away heat, and this loop is at such high pressure that the water never boils. The second loop is at a lower pressure, so the water in this loop turns to steam and runs the plant’s turbine to generate electricity.

The steam generator’s main technical job is to let the first loop pass its heat to the second loop as easily as possible. To do this, a steam generator packs thousands of small tubes closely together, allowing the maximum area for heat to pass through the tubes and into the second loop’s water.

At the same time, the steam generators provide an important safety barrier – the first loop can contain radioactive material, so the tubes must keep the two loops of water separate. NRC rules require plants to closely monitor the second loop and immediately shut the reactor down if a tube leak exceeds very strict limits.

pwr[1]The NRC’s rules for inspections, maintenance and repair of steam generator tubes help ensure the tubes continue providing the safety barrier. If an inspection shows a tube is starting to get too thin, the plant will repair or even plug a tube to maintain safety.

Steam generator tube material has improved over time. The first steam generators had tubes made from a type of stainless steel that experience showed could be corroded by the chemicals, temperatures and pressures in the first and second loop. Over time, plants have replaced those steam generators with ones using more advanced alloys that are less likely to corrode.

Steam generator replacement only happens when the reactor is shut down for refueling, and plant owners bring in hundreds of specialized workers to safely remove the old generators and install the new ones. The old generators have to be safely disposed of as low-level radioactive waste.

REFRESH is an occasional series where we revisit previous posts. This first ran in July 2013.

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