Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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In Europe, we will start to replace
steam generators with thermally treated
tubes to avoid degradation.
12.
What major issues will need to be
addressed when we try to achieve 80-year
plant life?
Similar to what utilities had to do to
achieve licenses for 60 years of plant life,
continual monitoring of facilities will be a
critical part of achieving an 80-year plant
life. Utilities are committed to improving
the materials reliability program and that
will continue as they work toward 80
years, but we may see new issues come
up that need to be addressed.
The NRC has indicated that their
focus will be on the vessel itself and vessel
internals. As the vessels experience more
and more fluence, we have to demonstrate
that the vessels don’t have any type of
embrittlement problems. To accomplish that,
we’ll be completing analysis and continuing
the surveillance specimen analysis to ensure
that the vessel is stable and that there is
enough ductility in the vessels.
13.
Are cables any concern for the 80-
year plant life?
We’re working to identify any
maintenance issues and implement
innovative solutions that can help the
industry stay ahead of them.
In the inspections that have been
completed, cables still look good, but
eventually they will need to be replaced.
The industry will need to identify
which cables, whether power cables or
instrumentation and control cables, in
certain environments will need to be
replaced. The NRC has identified this
as an issue that needs to be a part of the
materials reliability program.
We’re also looking into working
with a drone company to complete
containment inspections.
The Electric Power Research Institute
is doing research in these areas now. As we
complete this work to maintain the safety
of the plants, I think we’ll successfully
reach 80 years of plant life.
14.
What
major
post-Fukushima
innovations are going on at Areva?
One of the big innovations we’re
working on is accident tolerant fuel.
These new fuel concepts will be important
for both existing and next-generation
reactor technologies. We’re working with
DOE right now on advancing our design
as an enhanced accident tolerant fuel. In
addition, we are discussing an alliance
with Lightbridge to work with the
company on its helical solid metal fuel
rod design. This could be an even bigger
advancement in accident tolerant fuel.
The industry wants to have lead
test assemblies for accident tolerant
fuel by 2019, at the latest. From a fuel
perspective, that’s very near term. During
a normal refueling, a utility might replace
between one-third and one-half of the fuel
assemblies. For the lead test assemblies,
we’re considering using full assemblies
or we’ll just replace certain rods for
testing. Once the lead test assemblies are
used and if they perform well, we’ll move
on to doing full reloads with the accident
tolerant fuel.
Curtis Roberts, AREVA, telephone:
