POWER February 2011 - 8

Major Milestones for the
AP1000 Reactor
Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor design
hit several milestones in recent months,
prompting speculation that it could take
the coveted lead in the charge to deploy
the world's third-generation nuclear
power plants. In December, work on
the first units at Sanmen, China, took
a major stride, as developers lifted and
placed the fourth ring of the reactor's
containment vessel. In the U.S., where
the reactor design has been designated
for use across the Southeast, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) Advisory
Committee on Reactor Safeguards
submitted a positive evaluation of the
design, putting it a step closer to final
approval, expected next year. And
as a second factory was inaugurated in
China's Hubei Province to make major
structures for AP1000 plants, Westinghouse
in December announced it had
completed preparatory work on fuel for
the AP1000 units by producing the first
four fuel assemblies (specifically for
1. Leaps and bounds. This December,
the AP1000 reactor design from Westinghouse,
a Toshiba Corp. company, reached
major milestones. Among them, at Sanmen
1, China, where the world's first AP1000 has
been under construction since March 2009,
Shandong Nuclear Power Co. lifted and placed
the fourth ring of the reactor's containment
vessel. Courtesy: Westinghouse Electric
Sanmen) at a fuel fabrication facility in
South Carolina.
At Sanmen 1-where the world's first
AP1000 is being built-builder Shandong
Nuclear Power Co. said lifting of
the fourth ring of the reactor's containment
vessel progressed well. Having
started construction in March 2009, the
project was 14 days ahead of schedule,
the state-owned company said. It added
that a major part of the reactor building
now stood about 40 meters high (Figure
1). The first of two units is slated for
completion by the end of 2013.
The project's progress is being closely
monitored not just because it is in essence
" serial No. 1 " but also because
Westinghouse has cut a deal to transfer
technology to China's State Nuclear
Power Technology Corp. (SNPTC)
through construction of the first four
AP1000 units (two units at Sanmen and
two at Haiyang) so that SNPTC can build
future ones on its own. Construction
on manufacturing modules for AP1000
structures and future derivatives like
the larger CAP-1400 is also reportedly
progressing. Latest estimates are that
Toshiba has planned to spend up to
$609 million to develop the CAP-1400
by 2017. In December, a second factory
was inaugurated to build containment
vessel parts and other large components
for planned units. The factory, owned by
Hubei Nuclear Power Equipment Co., is
based in Wuhan.
Meanwhile, China's nuclear plant
building spree continues-with 10,234
MW of nuclear capacity in operation and
21,920 MW under construction-even
though, as state news agency Xinhua
reported this January, a research unit
of the State Council warned the country
should deliberately slow progress
to lower safety risks. The State Council
said in a commentary published in Outlook
Weekly that China should set a limit
of 70 GW of reactors in operation by
2020 to avoid shortages of fuel, equipment,
and manpower. One way to manage
future safety risks was to develop
reactors based on the AP1000 instead
of second-generation technologies, the
council said.
In the U.S., the NRC's Advisory Committee
on Reactor Safeguards concluded from
a review of an advanced final safety evaluation
that Westinghouse-proposed amendments
to its AP1000 design certification
8
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maintained " robustness of the previously
certified design. " Abdel-Khalik, chair of
the advisory group, added in a letter: " We
conclude that there is reasonable assurance
that the revised design can be built
and operated without undue risk to the
health and safety of the public. "
Officials at the regulatory agency will
now consider the panel's report before
making a decision to approve changes
to the AP1000 design next year. The
advisory group's approval was hailed as
positive move in the design certification
process by utilities such as Southern
Co., which will use the AP1000 for
Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle in Georgia,
which it has begun constructing.
Southern Co. has received an $8 billion
loan guarantee for building the $14 billion
project. AP1000 reactors have also
been proposed in pending NRC applications
for sites in Levy County, Fla., and
Fairfield County, S.C.
Last December, Westinghouse also made
major progress by manufacturing the first
four fuel assemblies at its Columbia Fuel
Fabrication Facility (CFFF) in South Carolina
to fuel the Sanmen 1 project in China.
As Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel Senior
Vice President Joe Belechak explained,
the achievement was significant because
it verified an integrated process; it basically
took the preliminary AP600/AP1000
fuel design through a comprehensive test
and manufacturing development program.
More than 100 team members were involved
and upgrades worth $16 million at
the CFFF were implemented.
DOI Approves Nine Solar
Projects on Federal Land-
So Far
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in late
December approved-for the ninth time
since October 2010-a solar power project
to be built on federal lands. Solar Reserve's
Crescent Dunes is a 110-MW concentrating
solar power (CSP) plant planned for siting
on about 2,250 acres of public lands in
Nevada. It will use advanced " power tower "
technology developed in the U.S. by
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a subsidiary
of United Technologies Corp.
According to Solar Reserve, the facility
also has the " ability to capture and store
enough thermal energy each morning to
provide electricity at full power all afternoon
and for eight hours after sunset. " The
POWER | February 2011
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POWER February 2011

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