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 plants 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 1s 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 plants 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 Bars 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 dont 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 TVAs 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
users 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 doesnt 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.
Sequoyahs
Golf Tournament Raises $32,000 for PIE Schools Wet
weather did not dampen the success of Sequoyah Nuclear Plants golf tournament
to benefit the sites 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 years
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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