Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by _n_b_ on Saturday March 12, 2022 @02:59PM
(#30654387)
That is exactly how nuclear outages work. Everything is planned in a resource-loaded schedule and many of those resources are just there for the outage.
Finland is actually somewhat known for running short (1 year) cycles with very very short (<10 days for refuelling is not unheard of) refuelling outages every other cycle alternating with slightly longer maintenance outages. A more typical scenario in the US would be 18 month cycles with a 30ish day outage. Some plants are moving to 24 month cycles with slightly longer outages.
Capacity factor for nuclear plants in the US is consistently around 93% (similar figures in many other countries as well), which is significantly higher than other generation sources.
Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by akiselev on Saturday March 12, 2022 @02:53PM
(#30654338)
Most reactor downtime is due to refueling, since that requires cooling down the core through several stages. AFAIK it's not practical to do it safely and economically in under a few weeks.
Most reactor maintenance is already done during refueling so there isn't much more room to optimize that downtime. (though that may change the older a reactor gets)
Re:Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite...
by _n_b_ on Saturday March 12, 2022 @03:03PM
(#30654411)
Most reactor downtime is actually for maintenance during refueling windows. As I mentioned in another comment, there is experience doing refuelling-only outages in <10 days. If everything goes well, you can startup a PWR from cold shutdown to hot full power in 3 12 hour shifts
They'll probably shut the plant down, and have 500 workers come in to replace everything that needs to be replaced, and then power it up again within a few days, and let it run for another 6 months or so.
Everything will be planned on workplans, and most won't require specialist knowledge... Eg. "Replace pump 205 in building C with this pump. Required skills people: 2x plumber, 2x electrician".