Construction problems plague nuclear reactors under construction at the Vogtle plant

This is a column by opinion editor Adam Van Brimmer.

A core meltdown must be avoided at all costs in a nuclear power plant.

At the Vogtle plant, it is the costs, not an overheated reactor core, that cause a core meltdown.

A month has passed since Georgia Public Service Commission officials testified about a troubling series of manufacturing defects in one of two new reactors under construction on the Savannah River. They used terms like “a bit of a shock” and “pretty big business” to describe the problems they found.

The hearing followed the US nuclear regulatory authority, which initiated a special inspection on construction issues of the reactor.

Many Georgians missed this news, which included summer vacation and shortened working weeks due to the June 10th and July 4th vacation. Another reason for the inattentiveness is that the next Vogtle-specific hearings will not take place until October. Out of sight of the smartphone calendar, out of mind.

An aerial photo shows the two new reactors under construction at the Vogtle plant.  Unit 3 is on the left and unit 4 is on the right.

More from Van Brimmer:Get off the bus? Denial of school transport is a poor solution to a long unresolved problem

But while the PSC meets on Thursday for administrative work, the commissioners have to talk about Vogtle. The October hearings will be part of a review that will determine how much of Vogtle’s cost of capital can be passed on to homeowners and other users.

The PSC must acknowledge that the Vogtle operator Southern Co. cannot allow customers to incur further costs for construction errors. And commissioners must encourage the utility company to bring solutions to the table in October or witness a Chernobyl-like meltdown by an angry public.

Vogtle is already five years behind schedule and 16 billion US dollars above the original cost estimate of the project. Georgia Power customers have long had funding costs through a fee on their monthly account. A recent estimate is that the average homeowner will have paid $ 854 in debt servicing by the time the reactors come online.

Both power plants should go into operation by the end of 2022, but deadlines at Vogtle are nothing more than suggestions. Meanwhile, each monthly delay adds an additional $ 25 million to project costs.

But then it could be more expensive to speed up the project than the delays. Details of the shabby construction announced in June were intended to renew interest in building nuclear bunkers. Defective welds in the tanks where radioactive material is stored. Cables that are laid so close together increase the risk that a fire or other accident could override safety devices that are intended to create redundancies.

Opinion editor Adam Van Brimmer

More on the Public Service Commission:Lauren ‘Bubba’ McDonald holds on to win Georgia PSC runoff over Daniel Blackman

A recent test procedure put the risk in context. The contractor started heating a reactor to its operating temperature in April to run a test to ensure the facility is ready for fuel loading.

The process should take 15 days and often takes up to 30 days. Sixty-one days later, approx. 60% of the components of the Vogtle reactor involved in the heating had failed and the reactor was still 100 degrees below the functional temperature.

A bad test is usually not a cause for concern – verifications are used to find and fix bugs. However, given Vogtle’s history and other recently discovered shortcomings, this failure further undermines confidence in the project.

Even among us nuclear power advocates who are attracted to 60 to 80 years of CO2-free electricity generation, we hardly want to go through our own Vogtle syndrome.

Contact Van Brimmer at [email protected].

Comments are closed.