News

May 13, 2008

Core issue

How long can plants run safely?

ROCKVILLE, Md. – A major decision that will have consequences in Luzerne County and beyond will be made here at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission headquarters.

The question is whether nuclear reactors are safe beyond their designated lifetimes. But here’s the hitch: NRC policymakers will be going in blind, lacking research, estimates or even a baseline history on which to make decisions.

“If you ask me how these components are going to behave in 80 years, I have no empirical evidence to predict that,” said Randy Lott, a nuclear engineer for Westinghouse Electric Company.

PPL Corp. has 14 years before the issue could affect its Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Salem Township, and the company is hoping to delay that decision another 20 years by getting a license extension.

Reactors were designed to remain functional through their 40-year licenses. One Susquehanna reactor is licensed through 2022, the other through 2024.

Some plants were designed to exist longer, and currently can be licensed up to 60 years. Both Susquehanna plants have filed for those extensions.

Now the industry is exploring whether the lifespan can be extended beyond that.

Every year spent waiting for an answer, companies worry, is one more they must rely on unclear estimates of their plants’ values.

“We’re starting to plan beyond the current life cycle,” said Andy Winter, the equipment reliability manager for Exelon, which owns several plants in Pennsylvania and the PECO energy company in the Philadelphia area.

The issue becomes more pressing as America’s energy demand increasingly grows. Decades of research has refined at what levels plants can operate safely, allowing them to increase their output above their original permits to help meet demand. The two Susquehanna reactors are expected to be at their maximum by 2010.

But no new plants have been approved for construction in the past three decades, and the older plants are nearing the end of their initial licenses.

Without extensions, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires that plants be decommissioned and dismantled. It would mean thousands of megawatts of capacity leaving the market and millions of tons of irradiated building material and reactor components to be disposed of.

Another worry is what could be left behind. Though no companies have suggested it, reactors can be decommissioned by simply entombing them in concrete for years until the radioactivity dissipates. “It wouldn’t be limited to a plant where an accident had occurred,” NRC Public Affairs Officer Neil Sheehan acknowledged in an e-mail. “It could be any plant that decided it wanted to go that route.”

With those questions looming, the potential for operating plants beyond even 60 years is receiving more interest – and scrutiny.

“I think it’s really important. … We need to develop an operating experience database,” said Charlie Hofmayer, an engineer at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. “Operating experience, in the end, is what’s going to be the indicator for us past 60 years.”

In February, the NRC held a conference to identify problems and suggest where to look for answers. One suggestion was looking to other industries for inspiration.

“That is something that we are doing much more than in the past,” said Jennifer Uhle, the director of the NRC’s Division of Engineering. The industry “didn’t have a good history reaching out … because we’re nuclear, and we’re so much different,” she said. “It may not be nuclear, but it’s still a safety mission, and I don’t think nuclear risk is any different from any other risk regarding safety concerns.”

Susquehanna’s past, future

The Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Salem Township was announced in 1970. At a cost of $4.1 billion, Unit 1 went online commercially in 1983 and Unit 2 in 1985.

The reactors received 40-year licenses. Unit 1’s license expires in 2022; Unit 2’s in 2024. Both were initially permitted to operate at 20 percent below their theoretical safe maximum. Both have received approval to increase their capacity so that each will be running at maximum by 2010.

PPL, which has a 90 percent stake in the station, already has applied for 20-year license extensions for both reactors. An approval hearing before the NRC is scheduled for Sept. 30 at the NRC’s Rockville, Md., headquarters.

If approved, the reactors would be licensed until 2042 and 2044.

“If you ask me how these components are going to behave

in 80 years, I have no empirical evidence to predict that.”

Randy Lott

nuclear engineer for Westinghouse Electric Company

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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