At the request of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NextEra Energy Resources has fleshed out its plans to address concrete degradation at the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire.
Since 2013, lawmakers have hammered NextEra and the NRC on the concrete degradation issue, known as alkali-silica reaction, which has plagued the nuclear facility’s foundation and vertical structures, including the containment building housing the nuclear reactor. The NRC has maintained that the 26-year-old facility is “degraded but operable.”
NextEra has filed a license amendment request for Seabrook Unit 1 that would alter the plant’s updated final safety analysis report to better address the concrete issue. The NRC responded that NextEra’s filing lacks the detail needed for the regulator to carry out its review.
NextEra filed a package of supplemental information with the NRC on Sept. 30, and the filings were released publicly Friday. In the supplement, NextEra provided the following information: the technical basis for testing correlation between concrete elastic modulus and through-thickness expansion; information on the company’s alkali-silica reaction deformation assessment program; and information on how concrete backfill may apply pressure to adjacent structures.
