Brown's Ferry Unit 1 nuclear reactor to restart more than 20 years after shut down.

[NNadir]

The Brown's Ferry unit one nuclear reactor, which once experienced a fire started by a worker carrying a candle into a room full of wiring, has been refurbished at a cost of $1.8 billion dollars. The reactor has been shut since 1985.

This December the reactor will be fueled for restart, slightly ahead of schedule. The reactor has been uprated to 1098 MWe, meaning that if it operates at the 90% capacity utilization typical of nuclear reactors, it will produce 0.03 exajoules of electricity, or roughly 0.1 exajoules of primary energy.

http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=4&catid=431

When restarted this one reactor will produce 17 times as much electricity as all of the solar PV cells in the United States combined.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmxlfile1_1_a.xls

This refurbishment suggests that some shut nuclear reactors in SafeStor mode can be returned to service even after long shutdowns. It may be cheaper, however, to simply build new reactors from the ground up.

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Any idea how many reactors that would include?

That's not a bad price for a 'quick' fix - depending on how long the process takes...

[NNadir]

2. Not all that many that are suitable, if any are suitable.

Many of the reactors that shut were poor performers.

Indeed Brown's Ferry 1 was not a great reactor, although both Brown's Ferry 2 and 3 have been spectacular successes. I am sure that with the refurbishment, Brown's Ferry 1 will perform as well as its sister reactors.

Off the top of my head I can only think of a few reactors in the US that might be refurbished and restaffed, Zion 1 and 2, near Chicago, and Rancho Seco in California, near Sacramento. The latter reactor is scheduled to be dismantled in 2008. I have no doubt that all three of these reactors can be operated safely if they are upgraded, especially when compared to what has replaced them.

Fossil fuels plants are inherently unsafe, since climate change is real.

That said, all three of these reactors had operating problems that adversely affected their economics. Rancho Seco operated at only 40% of its capacity over its lifetime, and was politically unpopular. The local community voted to shut it, and presumably they would need to vote to reopen it. I really don't see any evidence that the general population in Sacramento is enlightened enough to do that. Sacramento is not Sweden, as is evidenced by the fact that Sweden has not elected two pixilated actors to positions of administrative responsibility.

Personally, I don't think that restoring old reactors is preferable to simply building new reactors. The cost of refurbishing Brown's Ferry was at least a fair fraction of the cost of simply building a new Gen III type reactor. Of course, the decommissioning costs were saved at Brown's Ferry, so that is an issue as well, but it does seem to me that it was a rather special case.

The reason to prefer new reactors is fairly clear. First, if we are to survive climate change, we need an operating nuclear construction infrastructure that is compatible with Gen III designs. All of the new Gen III reactors have superior designs that incorporate decades of experience with nuclear operations, good and bad. All new reactors have passive safety systems which makes loss of the reactor through operator error very unlikely. All of the Gen III reactors that have been built around the world are performing well. All of the new reactors are designed to use flexible fuel cycles, including those using plutonium, which will increasingly become important in four or five decades when the reactors will still be operating. All of the new reactors are standardized, allowing for cross training through the world as well as internationalization of the fuel cycle.

It took about 4 years to rebuild Brown's Ferry 1. The Japanese have been building new reactors, first poured concrete to grid connection, in less than 39 months.