Dec. 30--The Tennessee Valley Authority will shut down its Watts Bar Nuclear
Power Plant for refueling next year sooner than originally planned to help plug
a tube leak within one of the plant's four steam generators. TVA spokesman John Moulton said Wednesday that about two gallons of
radioactive water are leaking each day within one of the four steam generators
at the plant near Spring City, Tenn. TVA and federal regulators said the water
is contained within the generator, which is designed to transfer heat from the
nuclear reactor to create steam to generate electricity. "TVA is monitoring the leak and any radiation it may cause," said
Mike Marshall, section chief for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's projects
division. "It is well below the allowable limits." But to plug the leak TVA has decided to cease power generation at Watts Bar
in late winter, rather than in the spring as originally planned, Mr. Moulton
said. TVA had to replace the steam generators at one of its two reactors at the
Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy two years ago after similar problems. TVA plans to replace the steam generators at the Watts Bar plant in the fall
of 2006. The federal utility expects to spend more than $300 million to replace
the generators on the two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors, Mr. Moulton
said. Such leaks have caused utilities nationwide to replace steam generators at
more than two dozen nuclear plants. "There has been degradation of some tubes within the steam generators
because of wear, vibration, cracking and a variety of other reasons," said
Cheryl Khan, senior materials engineer in NRC's division of engineering.
"There have been good results in plants that have replaced steam
generators." The new designs have included stronger tube materials and heat treatment,
officials said. Watts Bar is America's newest commercial nuclear plant. But the TVA plant,
which began operation in 1996, includes equipment that dates back to its
original design in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1986, TVA settled a claim against Westinghouse Corp. over the steam
generator problems and obtained an extended warranty on the equipment until
1994. TVA regularly inspects the hundreds of tubes within its steam generators
and has to plug those found defective.
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