TVA Prepares to Refuel Sequoyah Nuclear Plant
TVA takes delivery of millions of dollars worth of uranium that will fuel the Sequoyah nuclear plant in Soddy Daisy. It's part of a $40-million process that TVA repeats every 18-months that keeps the lights on for more than a million people.
TVA Sequoyah will shut down for 27-days beginning at a yet-to-be announced date in February. That's how long it will take to replace $2-million worth of uranium.
TVA Sequoyah plant manager Paul Simmons said "once we get into an outage we'll off-load all of the fuel out of the reactor vessel and then we'll replace one third of that fuel with brand new fuel to operate for another 18-months."
We saw workers off-loading fuel rod assemblies Friday that were delivered by TVA's supplier. There are up to 15-hundred of those assemblies that will be in a pool of water between reactor one and two. For now, the assemblies are going into dry storage before they go into the pool.
It is safe for people to be near the fuel right now since it has not yet been irradiated. But workers, and our crew, were wearing radiation monitoring devices.
It's a very lengthy process that requires more than a thousand people in one way or another. TVA has about 850 employees at the plant but during the time they refuel hundreds of contractors are on the job too.
Technicians will also perform maintenance on all the systems, from the nuclear reaction process to the turbines and steam systems that generate power.
"We select our outage periods when the weather is mildest here in the Tennessee Valley region," Simmons said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is an unmoderated blog. Please be professional and respectful as you post.