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www.durhamregion.com THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, APRIL 23,2003 PAGE A7 m •■■■■■ . • . i : power Expensive lessons for Pickering A restart Two OPG workers inspect a turbine at the Pickering Nuclear A plant Unit Four to ensure it's ready for operation operation for restart anticipated this spring. says. This is pari one of a two-part series investigating the Pickering A nuclear generating station restart and Durham's nuclear industry. BY JACQUIE MclNNES Staff Writer O ntario Power Generation wrote its regulator Friday seeking permission to start up the first of four Pickering nuclear generators shut down for more than five years. If it gels that approval, OPG will begin an incremental startup startup of Unit Four early next month, slowly increasing power generation until it reaches its full 500-megawatt potential, likely by mid-July. At full power the one reactor will provide enough electricity to Ontario's grid to power households in a region the size of Durham. The Unit Four start-up will bring some closure for OPG on a process that began in December 1997, when it shut down all four Pickering A reactors following a full review of all the company's operations. The idea was to focus on improvements at the newer plants like the Darlington Generating Generating Station in Clarington and the Pickering B facility, 10 years the junior of Pickering A. With improvement plans well underway underway in those plants, the company planned to begin work for the restart of its oldest facility beginning beginning in late 1999, with expectations expectations it would be operational by 2001. Instead, the full, four-unit restart is now expected to finish with the first reactor online this summer and the last of the four reactors starting up sometime in 2005. When complete, the project project will cost about $2.5 billion, two and a half times the preliminary preliminary estimate. The delays and cost over-runs have stirred a controversy that prompted Premier Ernie Eves to promise an inquiry into the process last November. While the inquiry has not yet materialized, materialized, it will come to pass, says Dan Miles, spokesman for energy energy minister John Baird. 'The premier felt Ontario taxpayers taxpayers had a right to know. Both the premier and the minister felt an independent person should go in there and see what the reasoning reasoning and the problems were." The problem, he says, has been finding finding the person "with the right skill set with no conflict. I suspect suspect that's the reason it has taken so long," to call the inquiry, he DURHAM - It's no stretch to call Durham the nuclear capital capital of Canada and a vital part of Ontario's energy production. The region is home to 12 of the country's 22 nuclear reactors. reactors. Eight arc located in Pickering Pickering with another four in Clarington Clarington at the Darlington Generating Generating Station. Collectively, when they are all at full power, Durham's stations generate 7,400 megawatts of power--■ 500 megawatts per unit in Pickering Pickering and 850 megawatts per unit at Darlington. That equates to almost half of all power generation generation in Ontario. The Province's other power sources But when all is said and done, OPG's executive vice-president, Richard Diccmi, says Ontario will have a nuclear reactor that is far superior in performance, environmental environmental controls and safety to the one the company closed down. "With all the enhancements it is going to be a healthy, robust unit," he says. Still, remaking the 30-ycar- old nuclear power plant proved more difficult by far than the original estimates, lie admits. "In hindsight we would have done more front-end planning: scoping suppliers, drafting work, logistical planning, co-ordination of human resources, materials, engineering design -- what needs done and who's going to do it and what they arc going to need to do it." The project missed its deadlines deadlines and cost projections due to problems in four key areas, Mr. Diccmi says, They were: include coal, hydro-electric, oil, natural gas and a very small percentage of wind, solar and other alternative energies. Durham's nuclear history began with the construction of Pickering A units, which came online from 1971 to 1974. In 1982, four more were brought to service at Pickering B and in 1989 Darlington's first units began production. In December 1997, following declining productivity and efficiency efficiency at Durham's plants, OPG's predecessor company Ontario I lydro announced it would close Pickering A temporarily temporarily and locus on improvc- • the project was "under- planned" and "underevaluated" from the outset; • the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) ordered an unanticipated 28-month environmental environmental assessment, the first done on a nuclear power facility in Canada, stalling the project and increasing the work, timeline and associated costs; • the technical complexity of the work combined with unforeseeable unforeseeable complications, which could only be ascertained once work was underway; • lower than expected levels of productivity and a miscalculation miscalculation of time required to complete the project. From its conception to the present, the project escalated iront the most preliminary estimate estimate of $900 million over 18 months' work to today's projection projection of about $2.5 billion to return return all four units to power over a live-year period. "We've spent about $1,2 bil- mix ments at the new units at Pickering Pickering II and the Darlington Generating Generating Station. This followed a review of the operations and those at the Bruce Nuclear Plant in western Ontario by a group of consultants hired from the United States. Over the past five years initiatives initiatives at Darlington and Pickering Pickering have resulted in significant performance improvements in It) key areas including productivity, productivity, safety and environmental record, While in 1997, OPG's nuclear performance index rated 58 percent; today Darlington rates over 90 per cent and Pickering Pickering II around 72 percent. lion to date," says Mr. Dicerni, who estimates another $1.2 billion billion will be required to complete the remaining three units. The environmental assessment assessment itself was a critical factor in the time and cost of the project, he says. Before its restart proposal proposal to the regulator, OPG had already already undertaken a major environmental environmental review in close co-ordination co-ordination with the CNSC. The company believed that would satisfy the licensing requirement. "It all came down to an interpretation interpretation of the Canadian Environmental Environmental Assessment Act," says Mr. Dicerni. The company's executive executive team reviewed the act and concluded no EA would be required. A legal opinion reaffirmed reaffirmed OPG's conclusion, he says. They were wrong. The CNSC decision to call an EA was lauded by the community community and one local group said it did not go far enough. While even OPG now says the EA exercise proved valuable, it meant halting major portions of the construc- tion for the 28-month process. To proceed before the completion of the EA would have involved three risks, says Mr. Dicerni: the CNSC could have rejected the project outright; additional conditions conditions could have been placed on the project nullifying work already completed and continuing continuing work while the EA was in process would have undermined its validity. "One doesn't want to mess with public credibility in doing a nuclear restart. We were not prepared prepared to take that type of risk. Some of the work continued but a significant amount of work slowed down." When final CNSC approval for the project came in November November 2001,74 licence conditions were attached to it. 'There were a number of matters that ended up as licence conditions that were planned for but not in the same time frame. There were some things planned sequentially that had to be done parallel," and that added to costs, Mr. Dicerni says. But not all the blame lies with the EA, he readily admits. The first concrete numbers OPG relied relied on projected the project at $1.3 billion despite another estimate estimate at $1 6 billion. In hindsight, both were unrealistic, Mr. Dicerni says. While the estimators estimators drew upon their nuclear expertise expertise they were calculating on the unknown. This was the first time a CANDU reactor had been given a retrofit. Amongst the miscalculations they never factored factored in the time required for the type of work, the complexity of work and the fact people had to perform the work in less than ideal circumstances. Common work conditions included tight spaces and heavy protective gear. "You have people in space suits working with tweezers. It takes half an hour to get into your space suit to go to your workstation. workstation. You can only work so long because it gets hot," relates Mr. Dicerni. Then, maybe the worker realizes he doesn't have the right bolts or that the engineering drawing isn't up to date so everything everything must be halted while revisions revisions are made. Because it's a nuclear facility, every minor change must be approved approved and signed off. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, as the workers wait for the approval there is paid downtime. Multiply that by 35,000 tasks required required to satisfy the regulator and you begin to get the idea. So then the question becomes, becomes, how much of the project over-run was due to the EA, how much to miscalculation from the outset and how much to mistakes made along the way? 'There are too many what-ifs. Ask 10 people involved and you will get 10 different answers," says Mr. Dicerni. But he adds the Pickering plant, the community around it and the whole nuclear industry have gained invaluable improvements improvements and information through this process. The end, he believes, believes, may well justify the means. Nov. 1997: Pickering A four reactors reactors shutdown and improvement work begins on Pickering B and Darlington Generating Station Feb. 1998: 26 changes recommended recommended for improved seismic upgrades upgrades (earthquake proofing) to bring Pickering A to the same standard as Pickering B July 1999: Environmental assessment assessment studies begin, expected timeframe 3 months Aug. 1999: Project cost estimated at $900 million Feb 16,2001: EA approval announced announced by CNSC, licensing requirement requirement work begins Aug. 28,2001: Project cost estimate estimate revised to $1.5 billion November 2001: Final regulatory approval received from CNSC and major construction begins including including returning Unit Four to service and restoring common areas for all four units April 30,2002: Project cost estimate estimate revised to $2 billion October 28,2002: Project cost estimate revised to $2.5 billion April J 8,2003: OPG writes the CNSC for permission to restart Unit Four of the Pickering A reactor reactor 2003 - 2005: Tho remaining three- reactors at Plckorlng A aro expected expected to bo restarted In six to nine month Intervals. 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