Nation’s Largest Nuclear-Power Plant Set to Go on Line--Under Cost

The nation’s largest nuclear power plant is set to go on line ahead of schedule, despite years of protests, alleged misdoings and investigations.

“An interesting perverse twist is that with all these delays, we’re still way ahead of schedule and way under cost than that of similar plants,” said Brad Parker, Arizona Nuclear Power Project spokesman. “Palo Verde ends up looking like a rose in comparison.”

Project Director Ed Van Brunt said the major cause of delays at the $9.3-billion facility has been the time spent correcting four “significant” problems found when hot, functional tests were conducted from May through July, 1983, on Unit 1.

Defective Devices

Those problems at Palo Verde included defective thermal devices and sensors, cracks in a fuel changing guide structure and damage to a reactor coolant pump.

“Those have been completely fixed and have demonstrated to be satisfactory,” Van Brunt said.

With the plant in compliance with Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards, the long-awaited licensing of the facility was granted on New Year’s Eve--more than five years after application was made to the NRC for an operating license.

Fuel loading for the Unit 1 reactor began in the late evening hours of Jan. 6. Forty-six top-level employees were given part of a $1.1-million bonus offered as an incentive to do the job right and get it done as quickly as possible.

All 241 fuel rods were loaded within six days, four days ahead of schedule.

------ Palo Verde’s Unit 1 reactor is due to be placed in commercial operation in the last three months of this year. Unit 2 is supposed to begin fuel loading at the same time, with Unit 3 following suit in the first quarter of 1987. The plan is for all three units to be on line in mid-1987.

Once the plant is operational, one-third of the used fuel will have to be replaced every 12 months to 18 months. Because the plant won’t be on line until later this year, the first refueling will not be needed for 24 months to 30 months.

Months of testing will be required, however, before the plant begins producing power from the first reactor.

Up to 16 weeks of core-physics tests will be conducted before the 14-foot fuel rods can be loaded into the core to start the nuclear chain reaction.

Concern Voiced

There was some concern voiced during construction about adequate water supplies for the cooling system used on the reactor. Farmers in the area were also worried about what effect salt drift emitted from the cooling towers might have on crops.

The board later ruled that effluent water from nearby Phoenix could supply the cooling systems, but the panel found that a series of studies was needed to answer the salt drift question.

Arizona Public Service Co., the utility holding majority interest in Palo Verde, studied the question by measuring emissions from the towers and running a computerized prediction of the deposition rates in the area. The University of Arizona also conducted a study to determine the effects of varying amounts of salt on crops.

“The U of A completed their study in July of last year,” Van Brunt said. “It indicated that it would take large quantities of salt--in excess of a couple hundred pounds--before the deposition rate has any effect on crops.”

The other two studies showed that the towers would emit less than a pound a a half of salt spread over the entire 4,050-acre plant site. A hearing on the issue is set in March.

As far as protests against the plant, Van Brunt said the reasons range from higher bills to the safety of nuclear power. Several demonstrations have been held at the Arizona Public Service office in downtown Phoenix with maybe three or four protests staged at the power facility.

When Unit 1 reaches maximum power output, it will generate 1,300 megawatts of electricity for consumers in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico with the bulk of the energy--46%--going to Arizona.

APS spokesman Kevin Mosley said the utility’s residential customers who paid 8.69 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity in 1984 will pay 9.02 cents this year. The cost will rise from 12.57 cents in 1986 to 13.48 cents in 1987.

“The reason for the jump is the cost of going on line out at Palo Verde,” he said. “After that the costs sort of stabilize.”

Mosley explained that by 1994, the projected cost per kilowatt-hour will have increased to 14.94 cents, only a 10% rise from 1987.

In comparison, incremental production costs for a coal-burning plant in the mid-western United States are 2.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. At a nuclear plant, those costs are 1.9 cents, according to a General Electric publication on nuclear power.