Page 54 - July-August 2012
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Committed
to Nuclear
Business
By Thomas Franch, AREVA, Inc.
Thomas Franch
Thomas G. Franch is currently Sr. Vice
President of AREVA Inc.’s Reactors &
Services Business
Group - North
America. In
this role, he
is responsible
for the group’s
business operations
overseeing the
development of
new innovative
products and
services, customer
relationships and
overall project
delivery for the
operating U.S.
nuclear fleet and
the design and
deployment of the
next generation
Nuclear Plant.
Franch has more than 30 years of power
industry experience in various technical,
engineering, and executive positions.
Tom holds BS degrees in Civil
Engineering and Architecture from the
University of Illinois.
An Interview by Newal Agnihotri, Editor
of Nuclear Plant Journal at the Nuclear
Energy Assembly in Charlotte, North
Carolina, on May 22, 2012.
1.
What is AREVA’s vertical integrated
business?
Areva has a vertically integrated
model - all the way from the mining,
conversion, enrichment, and fabrication,
which is the entire front end of the fuel
cycle, to the design and manufacturing for
reactors. Additionally, we not only build
nuclear power plants but we also service
them. We also have the ability on the
backend to provide spent fuel solutions –
either for storage or
recycling. AREVA
hasbuiltreprocessing
facilities and we
also work in the
United States on the
MOX project. So
you can see AREVA
covers the entire fuel
cycle in our nuclear
portfolio offering.
2. How is AREVA
implementing US
NRC’s Post Fuku-
shima Task Force
recommendations?
First, we believe
in supplying and
making sure that the
plants are very safe,
so we want and need
to keep supporting the existing operating
fleet. In March 2012 the US NRC issued
three orders dealing with spent fuel pool
instrumentation, reliable hardened vents,
and strategies for mitigation of beyond
design basis for external events. They
also issued 50.54f letters - requests for
information - regarding flooding and
seismic concerns, and required that the
utilities have to address these requests
as well. AREVA is working very close
with the industry on what they need to
do to respond to the regulations and we
have various solutions from hardware
to engineering support. As an example,
we have some very good technologies in
spent or used fuel pool instrumentation.
And in that regard we believe we will
really help out the industry, our solution
is safe, cost effective and very reliable.
3. Does AREVA service Candu
reactors as well?
We have an office up in Canada
that also services some of the Candu
fleet ranging from staff augmentation
to engineering services in support of
modifications that we execute through our
EPC arrangements. We have experience
from within AREVA coming together
from our global expertise with our
German and French technology as well.
4. How does AREVA collaborate
globally with its different divisions?
As an example, our German
colleagues have developed some robotics
for in-vessel examinations. We have
actually taken that technology and
deployed it here in the States for in-
vessel examinations for various utilities.
And the technology is excellent, it works
magnificently in the vessels and therefore
we’re able to take a product and service,
bring them across and implement them
here for the benefit of our customers. And
similarly, we have deployed some of our
U.S. technology, some of our welding or
other expertise, and implemented it on
other facilities overseas.
Additionally, we’ve taken another
step, in the engineering space to
standardize application of some of our
codes and standards - especially for an
EPR. By executing thismodel, we are able
to realize the benefits of standardization
and deliver a consistent product for all of
our customers. Additionally the savings
that can be achieved both in schedule and
cost can be passed on to our customers.
5. What are AREVA’s current activities
and challenges in plant life extension?
With plant life extensions, we have
a lot of work that Areva has executed. In
fact, we have been involved with about
50% of the plant life extension work - this
work has occurred in one form or another
such as engineering studies, licensing, or
54
Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2012
