Texas Nuclear Plant Prepares for Planned Refueling and NRC Maintenance

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--According to reports from personnel close to the Comanche Peak Nuclear Generating Station, the plant will commence a nearly monthlong refueling and maintenance outage this coming weekend. Not only will contractors and maintenance crews refuel the 1,150-megawatt (MW) Unit 2, but they will also perform weld-overlays within the unit's pressurizer - repairs deemed mandatory by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

A pressurizer is a vessel that creates (and maintains) a small amount of steam to keep a pressurized water reactor's (PWR) coolant system at a proper pressure, ensuring the optimal condition for maximum steam generation and eventual electrical generation. According to the NRC: "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is concerned about the pressurizer surge nozzle-to-safe end weld indications, as this is the first time (2006 - Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Station in Kansas) that multiple circumferential primary water stress-corrosion cracking (PWSCC) indications have been identified in a weld. This condition calls into question the degree of safety margin present in past structural integrity evaluations for dissimilar metal (DM) welds susceptible to PWSCC, since multiple stress-corrosion cracking flaws may grow independently and ultimately grow together, significantly reducing the time from flaw initiation to leakage or rupture." Accordingly, knowledge and prudent planning by crews who will oversee the welding echo the sentiments and demands of the NRC, as plant workers said that, "600 alloy weld-overlays on nozzles penetrating pressurizer on the primary are what we'll be performing."

Comanche Peak is not the only facility that has been investigated and deemed susceptible to these inherent weld flaws. The list below comprises the remaining nuclear facilities nationwide that are under similar orders from the NRC:
•Braidwood Unit 2, Braidwood, Illinois
•Comanche Peak Unit 2, Glen Rose, Texas
•Palo Verde Unit 2, Tonopah, Arizona
•Seabrook, Seabrook, New Hampshire
•Summer, Jenkinsville, South Carolina
•South Texas Project Unit 1, Wadsworth, Texas
•Vogtle Unit 1, Waynesboro, Georgia
•Waterford Unit 3, Killona, Louisiana

The Comanche Peak station is located in Glen Rose, Texas, about 80 miles southwest of Dallas in Somervell County. It is owned and operated by Luminant Energy Company, LLC (Dallas), and is the company's only nuclear-powered electrical generating facility. The plant has an operational capacity of 2,300 MW, and is also in the planning stages to add nearly 3,400 MW of generating capacity by 2016, with two new 1,700 MW units.

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