Duke Energy expects to finish building a dry cask storage facility at the retired Crystal River 3 nuclear plant in Florida sometime this year, and all used nuclear fuel assemblies will be transferred from the fuel pool into dry casks by February 2018, a utility spokesperson said this week.
Crews will begin moving used nuclear fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool storage to the dry cask storage facility this summer, said Duke’s Heather Danenhower.
Following a competitive bid process, Duke selected SGT LLC as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for the dry cask storage project. Based in Charlotte, N.C., SGT has extensive experience working with Duke at the Crystal River, Brunswick and Robinson nuclear power plants.
AREVA Nuclear Materials is the contractor for the fuel loading campaign, which will dill 40 dry casks, according to Danenhower.
Visible construction of the dry cask storage facility started in August 2015. Crews first removed the top layer of loose soil (called grubbing) and leveled the foundation, then drilled holes up to 60-feet deep and filled them with grouting, Danenhower said. This work provided a solid platform for 20-feet of backfill material that will hold the weight of 40 fully loaded dry casks.
Workers demolished one 90-foot-by-120-foot building, which was necessary to install a new security system for the dry cask storage project. The project team has placed all horizontal storage modules on the foundation, and preparations for the fuel loading campaign have begun, Danenhower said.
Duke is using the NUHOMS dry cask storage system from AREVA affiliate TN Americas. The NUHOMS system consists of stainless steel canisters that provide a confinement boundary for the assemblies and an overpack concrete housing. This housing provides structural and environmental support against natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, and radiological shielding during storage. Duke Energy’s Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, S.C., and H.B. Robinson nuclear plant in Hartsville, S.C., have implemented a similar dry cask storage system, said the Duke official.
