John Polcyn
was named last June as the president of AECL Technologies, located in
Gaithersburg, Maryland. His main mission is to sell and build AECL ‘s
evolutionary ACR-700 nuclear power plant in the United States--on time
and within budget.
ADVANCED CANDU
REACTOR--NOT IF, BUT WHEN
ACR stands for Advanced CANDU
Reactor, the advancement being over CANDU reactors long used in Canada
and a round the world (34 are now in service, 22 of them in Canada). Currently,
the ACR-700 is undergoing a pre-application review for design certification
by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a similar type review in
Canada by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Polcyn of course is
upbeat about the prospects for nuclear in the U. S. and North America.
“It is not a matter of if, but of when,” he says.
All U. S. reactors are light
water reactors (LWRs) - most of which are pressurized water reactors (PWRs),
while the remainder are of the boiling water design (BWRs). Light water
is used as a coolant in the reactor coolant system for both PWRs and BWRs.
LWRs use enriched fuel (to 4% U-235). CANDU reactors (for Canada Deuterium
Oxide Uranium) do not have a reactor pressure vessel; the CANDU reactors
and the ACR-700 instead use horizontal pressure tubes and a calandria.
Where as the CANDU units operating today use natural uranium, the ACR-700
will use slightly enriched uranium fuel (SEU, to 2% U-235). CANDUs can
be refueled without shutting down operation, a benefit that PWRs lack.
THE ACR-700
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES
The ACR-700 technology is an
advance on the traditional CANDUs. Whereas all CANDUs designed and built
to date use heavy water for coolant and moderation, the ACR-700 uses light
water as the coolant and heavy water for moderation. It uses only 25%
of the heavy water as the currently operating, traditional CANDUs. Advocates
say it combines the best of both light and heavy water designs. At the
same time it retains traditional CANDU passive safety measures, on-power
refueling capabilities and flexible fuel cycles.
COST COMPETITIVENESS
Polcyn is quick to enumerate
what he thinks are ACR’s outstanding merits. First, there is cost
competitiveness. “The fifth unit (that is, the first half of a third
pair because ACR units come as pairs) will produce electricity at about
$1,000 a kilowatt,” he says. “Clean coal comes in at about
$1,500 a kilowatt. And with natural gas at $4.50 or $5.00, we are very
competitive indeed.”
48 MONTH CONSTRUCTION
Second, “we can build
the first ACR-700 (creating 750 MW of power) in 48 months, first concrete
to fuel loading, or 60 months from contract signing to commercial operation.
We will reduce that time to 36 months and 48 months respectively for the
fifth unit and beyond. Moreover, we build in parallel and not in series,
which speeds projects along. We are confident of these schedules owing
to our experience on recent CANDU construction in Korea ( Wolsong Units
2, 3 and 4 completed in 1997-98) and in China (Qinshan Phase III Units
1 and 2 completed in 2003). These units were all completed on time and
on budget. In fact, all six of the last CANDUs projects were on budget
and on schedule. Compare this to the fact that of the last 103 plants
built in the U.S., only one was delivered on time. “
COMPETITIVE
O&M
Third, “ACR uses slightly
enriched uranium, which is not much more expensive than natural uranium.
Our operations and management costs will be low and very competitive.
Our fuel costs will be lower than that of any light water reactors.”
FIXED-PRICE,
FIXED-SCHEDULE CONTRACTS
Fourth, “we’re
so confident of our technology, design and construction methods, we’ll
offer fixed-price, fixed-schedule contracts. I don’t believe anyone
else will be doing that.”
There are additional comparative
advantages Polcyn points out. These are an advanced control room with
state-of-the-art controls that identifies precursor events to potential
problems, allowing operators to prevent problems before they happen; a
simplified design compared to those of other reactors; and a design that
is complete before construction begins.
Polcyn is quick to note that
the online fueling is also a major selling point. “You are not captive
to fall/spring outages that coal and the current light water reactors
in the U.S. require. The ACR-700 is being designed to operate on 36-month
cycles. Outages are projected to be 21 days long every three years.
Thus its available capacity
factor will be very good, another reason why O&M costs will be low.
In the U. S., it took 20 years to get from around 60% capacity to the
high 90’s, but using the lessons learned from the worldwide fleet
of CANDUs and LWRs, ACR-700s will start at 95% and inch up from there.
Moreover, CANDU units have not experienced any fuel integrity issues that
have plagued other designs. If there were a leak, we’d just remove
the bundle and keep on running the plant. Thus there is lots of flexibility.”
The ACR-700 is designed
to be built in pairs, each unit supplying 753 MW; thus a pair delivers
about 1,500 MW. Modular unit pairs are added to the first on a schedule
convenient to the customer. “In Qinshan we finished the first unit
in December ‘02 and the second unit seven months later in July ‘03,
more than four months ahead of schedule because the Chinese needed the
power. A more normal stagger might be one to two years.”
“OPEN-TOP”
CONSTRUCTION
At Qinshan, AECL used “open-top”
construction, which, according to Polcyn, saves time and money. The technique
involves the use of a very-heavy-lift (VHL) crane placing equipment through
the open top of a building. A steam generator can be placed in one or
two days with a VHL, rather than the two weeks needed using the old methodology.
The technique also allows for more work done in parallel rather than sequentially.
MODULAR PREFABRICATION
Moreover, the ACR design calls
for modular prefabrication. Electrical and mechanical systems are to be
shop-fabricated and installed as packaged systems. Polcyn says that for
the larger components, his company is talking with shipyards in the U.
S. that would complete the fabrications and prepare the units for transporting.
“This way instead of having several thousand people on site we can
hold it to 3,500 or so,” he says. Polcyn adds that all that really
needs to be built in Canada is the on-line fuel feeding machine; all other
components can be fabricated locally or as economic conditions require.
If customers want a great deal of local involvement, they can have it.
AECL Technologies is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of AECL Ltd., (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited), a corporation
of the Canadian government that has jurisdiction over that country ’s
entire nuclear research and development program. AECL was established
in 1952, is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, has annual revenues
of $400 million and 4,000 employees. It designed and developed the CANDU
reactors; private companies make the reactor components and mine the uranium.
The conventional balance of
plant (BOP) for the ACR-700 has been developed by AECL and Hatachi, Ltd.,
of Japan. It will be based on Hatachi’s TCF-52 impulse type turbine
with a last-stage blade length of 52 inches. The turbine is made of a
single-flow high-pressure cylinder and two double-flow low-pressure cylinders
coupled to the generator. There are two external two-stage moisture separator
reheaters working in parallel to remove moisture and reheat both the high-pressure
main steam and turbine exhaust steam.
MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
Polcyn says that
as many as eight ACR-700s could be built in Ontario, where the Provincial
government is committed to phasing out all the coal-fired plants by the
end of 2007. He is optimistic about the market in the U. S. citing as
one reason the incentives included in the Energy Bill awaiting final action.
“If the Energy Bill passes and we have the opportunity to build
an ACR-700 on schedule and budget, you will see a resurgence of nuclear
in the U.S.,” he says. “The U. S. has not built a nuclear
plant in 25 years, building predominantly natural gas-fired plants in
the last 10 years. The country needs new base load plants that do not
produce greenhouse gas emissions and are low cost. The ACR-700 suits theses
circumstances.”
BEST PROSPECTS
IN THE SOUTHEAST
Polcyn says his company, AECLT,
is talking with American customers and that the best prospects at the
moment are in the Southeast, where there is good growth. He also believes
that there could be good demand up and down the East Coast, notably in
upstate New York for the New York market.
John Polcyn is a product
of the Nuclear Navy and is a Mechanical Engineer. He has over 30 years
of experience in the nuclear industry, including having spent over ten
years with the Tennessee Valley Authority in increasingly responsible
positions. He is a member of the American Nuclear Society, recent past
chairman of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) Supplier
Participant Advisory Committee and a senior management member of the Nuclear
Energy Institute (NEI) New Nuclear Plant Task Force.
PRODUCTS PLUS
AECL Technologies is capable
of doing more than promoting the ACR-700s in the U. S. It offers nuclear
plant services to increase capacity, reduce O&M costs and shorten
outages. It offers products such as high-performance seals for safety-related
pumps, and it offers specialized waste management and decommissioning
consulting services, often through its parent AECL, which has 50 years
of experience in the field.
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