One of the largest shipments TVA will ever receive is currently en route from South Korea floating toward the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant at Soddy-Daisy.
TVA is in the process of replacing the four massive steam generators in Unit 1 at the nuclear facility.
The generators, which were built in South Korea, were loaded on a cargo ship that will travel through the Panama Canal and on to New Orleans. After arriving there late this month, the steam generators will be transferred to barges and travel up the Tombigbee Waterway to the Tennessee River and to Sequoyah.
The generators are slated to arrive at Sequoyah in December and will be stored until they are placed in the reactor during the Spring 2003 refueling and maintenance outage.
Officials said the four steam generators have 13,552 tubes, and about 8.5 percent have had to be plugged due to stress corrosion cracking of the tubing.
Officials said the replacement of the steam generators will improve the
reliability of Unit 1 and reduce maintenance work during refueling and
maintenance outages. They said it will allow Sequoyah Unit 1 to return to service quicker.
Richard Salisbury of Sequoyah earlier said the generators are 67 feet long and weigh 688,300 pounds each.
The South Korea contract was awarded in 1999 to General lectric/Combustion Engineering Nuclear Power LLC.
The project will involve cutting a large hole in the containment unit in order to remove the defective generators and then lift the new ones in place. It will be necessary to use a crane that is 250' high for the job.
TVA is also having to dig a large hole at Sequoyah and line it with concrete as an underground vault for the steam generators that are being replaced. Mr. Salisbury said the equipment is being treated as low-level radiation waste. He said some radiation collects on the generator as water courses through it.
Sequoyah has four steam generators in each of the two units.
Each of the containment buildings are 172' tall.
Mr. Salisbury said the steam generators were initially put into the buildings through the sides. But he said that is no longer possible. He said the hole at the top will be covered back over as soon as possible. The hole will be 20' wide and 45' long.
Sequoyah Nuclear Plant went on line in 1981.
No cost figures on the project were available.