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TVA Today:
Daily news for employees

Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Project Gearing Up To Replace Watts Bar Steam Generators
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant is currently scheduled to replace the original four steam generators in the plant’s Unit 1 reactor in the fall of 2006. The work will be conducted during a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage to ensure the continued efficient operation of the plant.

TVA successfully completed a similar project at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in June, following four years of design and preparation. Sequoyah gained about 4 megawatts in power from the new steam generators, along with maintenance savings.

Similar improvements are expected to be realized at Watts Bar.

Replacing steam generators is a large and complex project, and the preliminary work of planning and scheduling the replacements at Watts Bar has just begun. All work will be performed in a manner that ensures the health and safety of employees and the public.

Why replacement is necessary
Watts Bar Unit 1’s steam generators have been in operation since 1996.

Steam generators contain about 3,000-5,000 tubes that can become degraded over time. Once this happens, the tubes must be plugged. After about 1/6 of the tubes are plugged, the plant’s efficiency is limited and longer outages are required. (See more about the tubes and how they work in “An overview of steam generators” below.)

Watts Bar Unit 2 is currently in lay-up (storage/preservation) status and not in operation.

The fabrication of Watts Bar’s replacement steam generators is well under way, with the units scheduled to be on site in October 2005. The installation contract has been awarded to Bechtel Power Corp., which completed the replacement project at Sequoyah.

An overview of steam generators
Watts Bar Unit 1 has four Westinghouse steam generators, housed in concrete compartments within the reactor building.

Extremely hot water from the reactor-coolant system flows through tubes in the steam generator. These tubes are surrounded by non-radioactive water, which picks up the heat and becomes steam. This steam is used to turn the turbine that spins an electrical generator, thus producing electric power.

Tubing for the replacement steam generators – which weigh about 379 tons each – is made of state-of-the-art material that was not available when Watts Bar construction was under way in the 1970s. The new steam generators feature an improved quality of metal that will resist cracking and corrosion, providing greater steam-production efficiency.

Inside TVA Wants To Know What You Think About Its News Coverage
Inside TVA is available online, and each issue of the monthly newsletter includes a request for readers to speak out about what they like and don’t like about its coverage of TVA news.

The latest online issue of Inside TVA includes a new version of the survey “Tell us what you think….” This survey asks for specific feedback on the articles in the August issue, including questions such as the following:

  • What did you think about the pictorial “A day in the life of a TVA Fossil Plant”?
  • What suggestions do you have for future “A day in the life of…” articles?
  • What did you think about the feature “What employees say…”?
  • What question would you like to see included in future “What employees say…” features?
  • What did you think about the insert “Understanding How TVA Works – Adding Value to the Valley”?
  • What did you learn from this latest “Understanding How TVA Works” insert?

Employees are encouraged to complete this and future “Tell us what you think…” surveys. Feedback and suggestions from employees are critical to determining what news coverage is most important to TVA’s workforce.

Click here to access the August Inside TVA, as well as previous issues. Then click on the “Tell us what you think” link in the upper right corner of the page.

Employees also can complete a request (on the right side of the page) to receive a monthly e-mail reminder letting them know when each issue of Inside TVA is posted.

TVA Internal Pagers in Knoxville, Muscle Shoals Now Being Replaced
Beginning this week and continuing through the week of Sept. 15, employees in Muscle Shoals and Knoxville who have TVA internal pagers will begin to receive replacement pagers. The replacements will include instructions on how to have them activated.

The old pager will work until the new pager is activated, but both pagers will not work simultaneously.

This is in support of an ongoing federal directive regarding narrow-band radio channels. TVA is working to reduce its existing channel bandwidth to improve the overall efficiency of federal VHF (very high frequency) radio bands.

A key action of this effort is the replacement of TVA internal pagers. Employees who have these pagers have been identified and the remaining pagers are being deactivated.

What to do with old pagers
Old pagers should be returned to the Computer Engineering Group at MP 5G-C after the user’s new pager begins to receive pages. Note: The battery from the old pager should be removed before placing the pager in TVA interoffice mail.

What to do if there are problems with a new pager
Anyone who receives a replacement pager that doesn’t work properly should call the TVA Nuclear Computer Engineering Group at 751-2345 or send an e-mail to ReplaceTVAPager@tva.gov.

Employees should include their full name and their pager number. Any problems will be addressed as quickly as possible in order to minimize downtime.

What is a TVA internal pager?
TVA internal pagers are accessed by dialing one of the following numbers: 1-800-323-4853, 751-1792 at Chattanooga, 632-7243 at Knoxville, 450 or 455 at Watts Bar, 650 or 651 at Browns Ferry, 350 or 450 at Sequoyah, or 3700 at Muscle Shoals – then entering a five-digit pager number.

TVA internal pagers are not pagers that are leased from an outside company.

Sequoyah’s Golf Tournament Raises $32,000 for PIE Schools
Wet weather did not dampen the success of Sequoyah Nuclear Plant’s golf tournament to benefit the site’s four Partners In Education schools. The tournament raised more than $32,000 for Loftis Middle, Soddy-Daisy Middle, Soddy-Daisy High and Sequoyah Technology.

The event was held in June at WindStone Golf Course near Chattanooga. More than 165 golfers participated, with 20-plus volunteers working the event.

The first-place team was made up of Jimmy Norris, Jeff Boggess, Rodney Dunn (all Watts Bar employees) and Paul Head (friend of Norris). Sponsorship was so successful that prizes were awarded to the top nine teams, in addition to closest-to-the-pin (women and men), longest-drive, next-to-last-place and last-place awards.

Major contributors included Framatome, Westinghouse, Stone & Webster, EPM, Siemens and Bechtel.

“Sequoyah truly appreciates all the contributions we received that enabled this year’s tournament to be such a huge success,” says Rick Purcell, Sequoyah Site Vice President. “Without the support we receive each year from our contractor and vendor partners, as well as our PIE volunteers, we would not be able to assist our four adopted schools as much as we do. All of us working together enables us to be true ‘partners’ in investing in our future generations.”

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