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By STEVE LeBLANC
PLYMOUTH, Mass. – Workers simulated Tuesday the shutdown of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant, just days before the plant stops producing energy after 47 years of operation.
On Friday, a team of workers will begin the process of reducing power generation at the plant, which is currently 40% of capacity.
The final process will take about five hours in a 1970s control room containing hundreds of levers, gauges, lights and buttons.
During the simulation, workers from the Plymouth, Massachusetts, historical factory exchanged orders for the buttons to be activated and those to be pressed to stop the reactor safely when alarms and lights went off. are on.
The shutdown of the reactor is the first step in a long process of decommissioning the plant, which includes removing used fuel and cleaning the site.
Factory workers are contemplating closure with mixed feelings.
"I am saddened and a little disappointed that we are closing down," said Eleni Sampson, coordinator of the electrical maintenance of the factory.
Dave Noyes, 58, a long-time employee of Pilgrim who plans to retire, said he could be proud to contribute to the production of non-carbon-intensive energy in the Nova Scotia region. England.
"I am very proud of what my colleagues have accomplished over the past 47 years," he said.
The plant belongs to Entergy Corp. but could be sold to another company, Holtec International, which has bought several nuclear plants in retirement or about to become, in the United States.
Holtec said that he could clean the factory and demolish it in eight years instead of the estimated 60 years old by Entergy. Holtec has designed a drum which, he says, can accept spent fuel after only two years of cooling.
Spent fuel rods that can no longer sustain a nuclear reaction remain radioactive and still generate significant heat. They are usually placed in puddles of water to cool for at least five years, the norm being 10 years.
The spent fuel rods will initially be stored onsite in cylindrical cylindrical metal and concrete drums, each weighing 163,000 kg (360,000 lb) and weighing 5.5 m (18 ft) high. The drums are designed to withstand floods and tornado winds of up to 580 km / h.
Since the commissioning of the plant, more than 4,000 spent fuel assemblies, each containing numerous pencils, have been generated. The factory is building on the site a separate platform that can hold up to 70 drums.
The plant currently employs about 580 people – a number that should be reduced to around 270 by March 2020.
At the same time, the station will reduce its emergency planning area – which currently encompasses nearby towns and villages located within a 16 km radius around the factory – at the very limits of the site itself. The zone was created to coordinate with local communities in the event of an accident on the site.
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