LEPREAU, N.B. — NB Power president Gaetan Thomas says he’s doing everything possible to control costs and get the Point Lepreau nuclear plant returned to service in the fall of 2012 as crews are about to begin reassembling the reactor for a second time.
The first effort by Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. to replace 380 calandria tubes in the heart of the reactor failed, requiring them to be replaced for a second time. Each tube contains a pressure tube, which in turn holds the uranium fuel bundles used to power the reactor.
“I have asked both project teams, AECL and NB Power, to look at everything in order to find ways to bring this project to a safe and successful completion sooner,” Thomas said on Monday.
Thomas said crews had already installed new calandria tubes but tiny scratches that were created during cleaning caused the joints at each end to fail.
“When we asked AECL to do the life assessment they couldn’t guarantee they would be leak tight for 30 years,” Thomas said. “It was not a safety issue, it was a reliability issue.”
The last of the first set of replacement tubes will be removed this week.
Thomas said replacing the tubes a second time will go faster.
“At this time all the procedures are in place and they were tested,” he said. “We have replaced eight new calandria tubes with a polished surface and they all work perfectly.”
It costs the province about $1 million for replacement power and other costs every day the Point Lepreau generating station is out of service.
It is the first refurbishment of a Candu-6 reactor but the procedure to polish the ends of the tubes was developed during the refurbishment of a Candu-6 reactor in Wolsong, South Korea. That project started about a year after the New Brunswick refurbishment but is now further ahead.
The project to extend the life of the New Brunswick reactor by another 25 to 30 years is running three years behind schedule and $1 billion over the original $1.4-billion budget.
The New Brunswick government maintains that the federal government should pay the cost overruns.
Energy Minister Craig Leonard said New Brunswick shouldn’t have to pay for delays as AECL, a federal Crown corporation, continues work on the reactor.
“It certainly is a massive amount of money and it’s going to be a huge cost for the people of New Brunswick if it’s a situation where we have to absorb that,” Leonard said Monday. “That’s why we’re going to do everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Premier David Alward has had two meetings with Prime Minister Stephen Harper but so far has not reached any agreement.
The province’s previous Liberal government threatened legal action if Ottawa refused to pick up the tab. Leonard said all options are still on the table, but he hopes they’ll be able to negotiate.