Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Index:



Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants 

Group to file complaint against TEPCO execs over cover-ups

2 German Police Hurt in Nuke Protest

U.S. fears groups may get radiation devices-report

CTI PET/CT With LSO Performs 7-Minute Whole-Body Studies at UCLA

=======================================



Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants  

Framatome CEO Tom Christopher explains how retrofitting is allowing 

utilities to squeeze more wattage from fewer reactors  



Business Week Online Nov 12 - In March, 1979, leaking coolant at 

Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 2 in Pennsylvania brought the nuclear 

power plant within 30 minutes of a catastrophic meltdown. The 

accident was contained, and only small amounts of radioactive gas 

escaped from the damaged reactor.  



The near disaster marked the beginning of the end of America's 

romance with atomic fission. Yet it didn't curtail the growth of 

nuclear power. Indeed, ever since Three Mile Island, efficiency 

improvements have helped nuclear-power generation to grow steadily, 

even as the number of functioning commercial reactors in the U.S. has 

fallen to 103, from a peak of 109. 



And over the next decade, nuclear output will grow an additional 10%, 

says Tom Christopher, CEO of Framatome ANP Inc., the U.S. unit of 

Paris-based Framatome ANP, the world's largest provider of nuclear-

engineering services. The result will be an additional 10,000 

megawatts' worth of electrical capacity -- the equivalent of 8 to 10 

big nuclear facilities -- without requiring the construction of a 

single new plant. 



The surge in capacity growth, Christopher says, is a result of the 

ongoing relicensing of the nation's commercial nuclear fleet. Today's 

power plants were commissioned to split atoms for not more than four 

decades. Starting in the late 1990s, the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission (NRC) began to extend that term to 60 years on a plant-by-

plant basis. 



The extensions have opened the door to major capital investment, much 

of which is funneled through Framatome. Plants pay the engineering 

company to upgrade their key systems, replacing clunky, '70s 

generators, mechanical switches, and manual gauges with high-

efficiency motors and digital controls. The upshot is not just 

increased output but improved safety, says Christopher, a 29-year 

veteran of the nuclear-power business. 



BusinessWeek Industries Editor Adam Aston met with Christopher to 

learn more about the surprising growth of the nation's nuclear 

capacity. Edited excerpts from their conversation follow: 



Q: Why have the operating extensions made such a difference to the 

industry?

A: Under NRC guidelines, the operators can submit an application for 

a renewed license within three years of a facility's 30th year. The 

renewal adds 20 years to the plant's original 40-year license. The 

life extensions open the door to capital improvements and make it 

possible for operators to take advantage of the lessons learned over 

the past 30 years, and to retool and upgrade for another 30. 



Q: What kinds of changes are taking place?

A: Every year, our ability to upgrade a plant improves. Productivity 

gains have been so high over the past 20 years that our costs to 

upgrade a plant have fallen by half. For instance, when a nuke 

[plant] refuels, which is every 15 to 18 months, it's required to do 

an intensive inspection. In the past, that was done by people -- even 

in high-risk radioactive areas. Now in practically every instance, we 

have a robot do the work. These machines can even do repairs -- they 

can weld and grind. So now, labor counts for only about 30% of the 

value we provide in an upgrade. 



Q: What's the scale of these upgrades?

A: It depends on what the operator is willing to spend. And that, in 

turn, depends on the average price of power over the plant's 

remaining years. If you assume a conservative price -- say $2.50 to 

$3.50 per megawatt hour -- a typical facility could justify $100 

million to $200 million in spending per reactor and still recover 

that over 20 years. 



These refits can be big operations. Picture a Navy ship that comes 

into a shipyard for a refitting, with hundreds of workers fixing and 

upgrading the ship. We do the reverse. We take the shipyard to the 

ship. During a fueling outage, it's not unusual for a plant to have 

900 contractors on site. 



Q: How do you decide what to replace?

A: The majority of U.S. plants were designed in the late '60s and 

'70s. In many ways, they're crude by today's standards. But they were 

designed very conservatively, with lots of redundancy, so there are 

parts that don't need to be changed. Also, it varies with the unit. 

If the plant is on a lake and cannot increase its discharge of 

cooling water, then upgrading its generating capacity isn't an 

option. If a plant is able to boost its output, then we can replace 

the steam turbines and generators. 



A lot of little things can also increase efficiency -- and power 

output. Thousands of detectors in a nuclear plant measure things like 

temperature and pressure. Each is connected to an electromechanical 

control panel. You can replace those analog detectors and gauges with 

microprocessors that will do more. And you can integrate the controls 

into a simpler system that requires fewer engineers to monitor. 



We can also reduce the house load power -- the electricity the plant 

needs to operate. The cuts can be significant -- say, 40 to 60 

megawatts. It's not unusual for a plant to have 3,000 motor-operated 

valves. We can replace these valves and pumps with more efficient 

variable-speed motors, cutting the house load by 10%. And all that 

[saved] power can be sold to market. 



Q: What's the net effect of these upgrades?

A: You will hear industry people say we've begun a period of pseudo-

construction of new nuclear plants in the U.S. On average, we'll see 

a 10% capacity increase from the nuclear plants here, so you're 

talking 10,000 megawatts in the next 10 years. 



Q: What sorts of efficiency gains have we already seen? 

A: Think of it in terms of capacity factor, which is the industry's 

actual production as a percentage of its potential maximum. The 

average for the U.S.'s 103 nuclear plants is 91%, the highest such 

rating in the world. It means that a typical plant is down only 9% of 

the year, or 33 to 35 days. That's remarkable, especially since, in 

the early '70s, that measure was 60% or so -- around eighth place 

compared with other national nuclear fleets. The improvement began 

before the current round of relicensing. It's due partly to the 

efforts of the industry associations to share operating practices. 



Q: Yet U.S. investment in new nuclear plants and technology has all 

but stalled. So where are these updated systems coming from?

A: The U.S. industry designed and constructed its plants in the '60s 

and '70s. At the time, the Germans and particularly the French took 

the U.S. plant designs, modified them, and then began the creation of 

this large French fleet. But they built their units using mostly late 

'70s and early '80s technology. 



Since then, France has religiously been going back and backfitting 

those plants. So when Framatome talks to a U.S. customer today, we 

say, "Before you rebuild, we will be your window on the world." We 

can take U.S. customers to a European plant that started with 

American designs and then optimized them. 



Q: Will the U.S. build any new nuclear plants?

A: Given the volatility of power prices, nuclear operators look at 

the near term -- say, three to five years. In that time, is anybody 

going to need a big base-load nuclear plant [i.e., a large-capacity 

facility that is run continuously]? Not likely. In 5 to 10 years, 

there may be a window. If so, the decision will probably be driven by 

other issues, such as environmental constraints. You might see the 

value of nuclear facilities rise if the world moves toward some sort 

of carbon tax. 



Since nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, it could be used to 

offset dirtier sources. It's impossible to predict what sort of 

energy technology will be available then. Perhaps we'll have a 

hydrogen economy, where nuclear power will be used to split water 

into hydrogen gas. 



Q: What are your thoughts on radioactive waste?

A: It's important to put the problem in context. I've seen data that 

say if you take all of the spent fuel rods generated in nuclear 

plants in the U.S. and stack them up, you'll have a pile that's 10 

yards high and fits inside a football field. That's it. 



Now, the issue is how do we deal with it. To us, Yucca Mountain [a 

waste-storage facility in Nevada] is the ideal solution. And frankly, 

the tax that's currently in the electricity rates -- two-tenths of a 

cent per kilowatt hour -- would be more than enough to build and 

operate Yucca Mountain. 



Q: In 1998, Germany voted to phase out its existing nuclear plants. 

Does this mean few nukes will be built abroad? 

A: Some countries are backing away from nuclear energy. But the news 

is more positive than negative. Finland just approved a public 

referendum to build a new nuclear plant. And in the former Soviet 

Union, they are determined to go back and complete a number of their 

plants that were never finished. 



Framatome is completing work on two plants in China. South Korea, of 

course, also continues to build nuclear plants. And Japan has a 

robust construction program -- maybe six or eight more plants are 

planned over the next decade. 

--------------------



Group to file complaint against TEPCO execs over cover-ups



IWAKI, Japan, Nov. 12 (Kyodo) - A civic group plans to file a 

criminal complaint with investigative authorities against senior 

officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), accusing it of various 

misdemeanors in connection with covering up defects at its nuclear 

power plants, the group said Tuesday.



The group told a news conference in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, that 

it will file the complaint -- the first such complaint against 

officials of the nation's largest power company -- in mid-December.



It said it will level five charges, including fraud, destruction of 

evidence and obstruction of government work, because the firm 

prevented the government from properly inspecting its facilities by 

concealing fractures it found in reactor shrouds.



The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will not be filing a 

complaint against TEPCO for violating the Electric Utility Law 

because the statute of limitations has already expired.



The group said it is planning to file the complaint against a former 

TEPCO vice president and four other executives.



It also said it will try to attract more people across the country to 

support in the complaint by mid-December.



TEPCO began reporting the discovery of the faults only after it was 

revealed in late August that during the 1980s and 1990s it had 

falsified safety reports and covered up defects found during safety 

checks at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants, and at the 

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture.

--------------------



2 German Police Hurt in Nuke Protest



DANNENBERG, Germany (AP) - Anti-nuclear activists staged a parade 

through this north German town near a nuclear waste dump Monday, and 

two police officers were injured in a skirmish with demonstrators.



Police said most of the approximately 1,000 protesters demonstrated 

peacefully against a shipment of 12 containers of atomic waste that 

left the reprocessing plant at La Hague, France, Monday night.



The train, with about 300 police aboard, was expected to reach the 

French-German border Tuesday afternoon. The shipment is the 

largest yet for dumping at Gorleben.



About 15 Greenpeace activists wearing white jumpsuits protested at 

the Valognes, France, train terminal as the 1,455 ton shipment 

left northern France.



In Germany, about 100 radicals in the group of protesters clashed 

with police, who responded with truncheons. About 60 people also 

blocked the road between the town of Dannenberg and Gorleben, 

ignoring a ban on all demonstrations in a within 50 yards of the last 

part of the route.



The nuclear dump at Gorleben is 75 miles southeast of Hamburg and has 

been a focus of Germany's anti-nuclear lobby.



Over the weekend, farmers and anti-nuclear groups symbolically set up 

at least 12 ``villages,'' with camp fires and bales of hay, near 

the route and several thousand people demonstrated at Gorleben



This week's shipment is the first since last November, when 

demonstrators repeatedly defied some 17,500 police to stage sit-down 

protests along the route through Germany.



Those protests were smaller than demonstrations that marked the 

previous transport in March 2001, the first in three years. The 

previous German government had suspended shipments after leaks were 

found in some containers.



Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France 

and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that then oblige 

Germany disposed of the waste.



Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to 

phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists 

hope that protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.

-------------------



U.S. fears groups may get radiation devices-report



WASHINGTON, Nov 11 (Reuters) - The Bush administration is concerned 

that devices used in the former Soviet Union to measure 

the effects of radiation on plants may fall into the hands of terror 

groups that could use the material to make so-called dirty bombs, 

The Washington Post reported on Monday.



U.S. and international nuclear experts are searching the former 

Soviet republics for the lead-shielded canister devices that 

contained 

radioactive cesium 137 in the form of pellets or a fine powder, the 

newspaper said.



Some of the tests the devices were used for were to determine farming 

conditions after a nuclear attack.



The total number of experimental devices put in the countryside by 

Soviet scientists during the 1970s range from 100 to 1,000, an 

official from the International Atomic Energy Agency told the Post. 

Only nine of the devices have been found so far.



A few ounces of cesium 137 put into a conventional explosive would 

make a "dirty bomb" that could contaminate a large area with 

radiation. A computer simulation showed a "dirty bomb" attack on New 

York City with about 1.75 ounces (50 grams) of cesium 

could spread radioactive fallout over 60 city blocks, the paper said.



Victims nearest the blast would be the initial casualties, but the 

relocation of people and businesses and the cleanup could cost 

tens of billions of dollars, the paper said.

----------------------



CTI PET/CT With LSO Performs 7-Minute Whole-Body Studies at UCLA



KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CTI Molecular 

Imaging, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTMI), announced today that its 

Reveal(TM) PET/CT scanner with LSO technology, which is produced by 

its CPS Innovations unit, is routinely performing clinical 

whole body patient scans in as little as 7 minutes.



According to Ronald Nutt, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of CTI and 

President of CPS Innovations, the faster times are a result of the 

LSO crystal technology, (lutetium oxyortho-silicate).  "LSO 

technology offers the best performance of any crystal material used 

today and allows for true 3D image acquisition resulting in increased 

image quality, and higher throughput.  LSO simply sets a new 

standard in PET imaging."   CTI has an exclusive license to produce 

LSO crystals and, accordingly, only those PET machines 

manufactured by CPS Innovations have access to this proprietary 

technology.



"The ability to produce high resolution whole body scans in only 7 

minutes versus the traditional 30 - 45 minutes typically required 

for PET scanners using BGO crystal technology reflects the tremendous 

advancement being made in PET scanner technology and 

molecular imaging," said Dr. Nutt.  "Rapid PET/CT scans, which 

integrate anatomical imaging and molecular imaging of organs and 

tissues in a single study, are setting the standard for patient care. 

 The reduced scan time improves the quality of patient care by 

reducing patient discomfort and enhancing throughput without 

compromising quality."



"PET/CT is an invaluable tool in the diagnosis, staging, treatment 

selection and monitoring treatment responses in a number of diseases, 

particularly cancer, neurological disorders and cardiovascular 

disease," said Johannes Czernin, Director of the Ahmanson Nuclear 

Medicine Clinic at UCLA. Using a weight based protocol the UCLA team 

routinely achieves the rapid study times since the LSO PET/CT scanner 

was installed earlier this summer.  "The less time that a patient has 

to lie immobile, the better the image quality due to reduced motion 

artifacts and the more comfortable the patient is."



-------------------------------------------------

Sandy Perle

Director, Technical

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100  Extension 2306

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net

E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com



Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/



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