Overhaul to Keep Nuclear Plant Humming

Jul 22 - Omaha World-Herald

The nation's most complex reconstruction of a nuclear plant to date is under way north of Omaha.

At a cost of $417 million, the Omaha Public Power District hopes to extend the life of its 33-year-old nuclear plant for 30 more years.

"If you really look at everything that we're doing and have done over the last two years, Fort Calhoun in many ways is going to be the next new nuclear plant in the country," Ross Ridenoure, OPPD's vice president of nuclear power, said Friday.

The U.S. power industry stopped building nuclear plants after the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.

Now, first-generation plants such as Fort Calhoun are reaching the end of their federal operating permits and planned life span. Rather than close the 103 reactors in the United States, utilities are retooling them.

Fort Calhoun is on the leading edge of the effort.

Almost three years ago, OPPD got permission from the federal government to continue operating the plant until 2033. With that license extension in hand, OPPD has begun replacing equipment that is too old or costly to continue using.

Refurbished, the plant will operate more efficiently, generating possibly 8 percent more electricity.

Because the United States no longer has a nuclear power manufacturing base, most of the new equipment was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan. OPPD is the first U.S. utility to buy Mitsubishi's steam generators.

Fort Calhoun is the nation's most complex nuclear plant renovation project because OPPD is switching out most major pieces of equipment at once, rather than spreading the work out over several years.

Planning began years ago. The project reaches a head in September, when the plant will be shut down for 90 days for the equipment switch-out.

Fort Calhoun supplies about one-third of OPPD's electricity. Jeff Hanson, spokesman for OPPD, said the utility considered whether it would be cheaper to close the plant and find another source of electricity.

Ultimately, OPPD decided that other options would be more costly. A new coal plant, for example, would cost $900 million to $1 billion to build.

Even so, costs have doubled from the original estimate of $180 million. For a variety of reasons, OPPD is having to replace more equipment than originally thought necessary.

Rates already have begun increasing to pay for this and other OPPD projects.

Leonard Willoughby, a federal inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said OPPD has a good safety record, so federal regulators believe the overhaul will be safely executed.

But regulators are taking nothing for granted. A team of inspectors will spend hundreds of hours pouring over plans and overseeing work on site, Willoughby said.

"We're confident they'll do it right," he said. "But we'll also monitor them to be sure."

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.