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Section Two The Canadian Statesman, Bowmanville, June 4, 1975 A Tour of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station "What you see is what we get." In the background is Pickering A Nuclear Generating Station. In th foreground Pickering B its twin is now under construction. The area encompassed by these two plants will be the same area taken by the proposed Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. These huge turbines at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station are powered by steam which comes i by three foot in diameter pipes, at six million pounds of steam per minute. The turbine works at 180 revolutions per minute, which in turn powers a generator producing 540,000 kilowatts of electricity. These are the controls for one reactor, turbine, and generator at Pickering A Nuclear Generatiný Station. There are four such systems at the station, and the controls encompass all the wall space of wha is called the control room. and SAVE on heating costs! y -~ NASH FUELS Nash offers you E *0 * e Free Service e Free labour " Free annual furnace cleaning " Free emergency oil burner service 24 hoursaday PARTS REPLACEMENT PLAN only $15 Also - gasoline - fuel oil- diesel fuel stove oilu and farm equipment. 244 Gliddon Ave. OSHAWA 725-0684 by Bill Arnott Situated on a 500 acre waterfront property at Picker- ing is a structure with Byzantine domes that was once probably something out of "Buck Rogers". A tour of the structure is a bit like reliving a "Buck Rogers" adventure and a bit like entering "Uncle Head- quarters", for those of you who used to be "The Man from Uncle" television show enthu- siasts. This the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station producing at capacity 51,840,000 kilo- watts of electricity a day. A press tour of the station was organized last Wednesday, May 21, by the public relations department of Ontario Hydro. I arrived on the site shortly after 2 o'clock and made my way to a small building situated in front of the plant. In this building are scaled models of the plant, samples of material and equipment used in the plant and a projection room for the pur- pose of showing the public the principles of nuclear genera- S tion of electricity and how they are applied at Pickering. Conducting the tour are Ross Fitchett, Public Rela- tions Officer for the Wesley- ville Fossil Fuel Plant and Proposed Darlington Nuclear Generating Station and Pat Kelly, Public Relations Offi- cer for the Pickering Station. First on the agenda was a tour of the grounds, and in particular the construction site of Pickering B. An identical generating plant is in the process of being built besi e the resent facility. Before boarding a small bus designed to give tours of the site, all visitors are issued hard bats. From the bus windows we viewed a small building which when comple- ted will have instrumentation panels similar to those used to train Air Canada Pilots, Mr. Kelly stated. This building is a training. centre for Ontario Hydro personnel. The next small building on the site was the Central Maintenance Centre. In this building are facilities to fix all equipment in the plant. Mr. Kelly stated how at one time equipment had to be shipped to Montreal and England to be repaired. The site of Pickering B was next, in a large excavation on n Lake Ontario's shoreline and directly east of Pickering A, o one can see all the construc- tion equipment imaginable ine interesting part of view- ing the construction is that in the background you can see what it will be, (its twin). The plant is baically three types of.sttures set. toget- ber fromthe lake inlanid. Nearest the lake is a huge cyclindrical building which for all intensive purposes is the canister of one immense vacuum cleaner. The building has a wall 3 feet thick. It has an inside diameter of 165 feet and is 166 feet high. The building is one huge empty tank, a vacuum, or wbat Ontario Hydro refers to as negative pressure. On top of the vacuum is a tank where 2,180,000 imperial gallons of water are stored. Next to the vacuum are four domed shaped structures. These are the nuclear reactors where the heat is created to turn water to steam. Connec- ting the top of the reactors and the vacuum building is a square structure braced by the reactors and the vacuum building. This structure is the hose to the vacuum, if the reactor should over heat, the valves in the structure blow and the steam travels into the g vacuum cylinder at 400 miles t an hour, the tank of water then sprinkles the steam condens- ing it to water. This is a safety measure, which bas been tested but never used, Mr. Kelly states. Next to the four reactor cylinders is the main plant or power house. A flat roofed building where the turbines and generators are housed for the production of electricity. From this point our tour went back to the Public Relations building, out of tbe bus, then back into thie bus with a better looking driver. One of Ontario Hydro's female staff members tben drove us down to tbe power bouse at Pickering A. At this point we were given a tour of the power bouse b yPublic Rela- tions Officer Bih Milco. Hand- ing us our "Uncle" badges which contain various chemi- cals producing a red stripe, he stated if it turns black "your dead". Brave sole tbat I am, at this point I almost went home. The badges are a government regulation, the badges are kept two weeks then sent to the Department of National Health and Welfare. A brisk walk down a few corridors and across a sky walk we arrived at the control room. A huge room over 50 feet across gives one the impression of beng inside a flying saucer. The walls are a maze of small lights and control knobs, each quarter of the room is the control system for one of the reactors. Apparently all the large computer firms had a hand in constructing this equipment. Prior to entering the room we had the joy of standing on one very strange machine. You place your feet up against two switches, a light comes on, then either the green or red indicator moves, prefer- ablv the green one. You then place yoir hands in two slots for the same affect. A Geiger counter to one side of the machine seems to always give a reading, measuring radia- tion from your watch, etc. The tour of the plant was one of wiping your feet to enter each zone, and constant test- ing to sec if you're carrying any radioactive dust. All measurements are on a very low scale. Nuclear waste is a highly contraversial issue, so to view the spent fuel bundles of uranium through a window into a room were there is the largest swimming pool, better than olympic size was quite a thrill. The bundles are coated with lead and placed in layers under the water of the pool. One of the most impressive sites in the plant is the area where the turbines and gener- ators are located. There are four of each to coincide with four reactors. The area reminds one of a huge warehouse as it bas large doors at the far end, opening to the outside. There is also a spacious area beside the turbines and generators where heavy duty equipment can operate, in case of maintenance. In the turbines large propeller blades are forced around by steam pres- sure coming in by pipes 3 feet in diameter. The pressure is 593 pounds per square mc and the diameter o the steam is 483 degrees F. Mr. Fitchett states that at the fossil fuel plant at Wesleyville the tem- perature of the steam will be 1000 degrees- F. and the pressure will be 2530 pounds per square inch. The steam drives the blades at 1800 revolutions per minute. This turning action is transmitted tola generator which produces 540,000 kilowatts of electricity. The final segment of the tour, was back to the Public Relations building (my home away from home) and the viewing of a film on how electricity is produced from nuclear energy. The film starts with the uranium atom being unstable and giving off neutrons, the speed with which neutrons flee the atom results in few neutrons hitting other atoms. The introduction of heavy water slows the speed of the neutron causing a frequency of hitting other atoms. When an atom is hit by a neutron it splits. This splitting of atoms causes agitation which is heat. The heat is then used to heat a contained system of Heavy Water, which in turn heats a contained system of natural water, which turns to steam. Steam requiring more space produces pressure w ich drives the turbines, which power the electrie generators producing electricity. The steam in its cycle is turned back to water bv condensers. This is where water from Lake Ontario is used. Water is taken.from the lake at approximately 44 degrees F., used for cooling which heats the water approx- imately 18 to 22 degrees when it is returnèd to the lake. This is one of the controver- sial items, the heating of the lake. Mr. Kelly states that the warmed water stays on the surface, and at three miles out into the lake is barely detect- able having dissipated into the atmosphere. He stated that this course of events is constantly checked bv Ontario Hydro. Mr. Fitchett stated that it happens because it is Lake Ontario and not a stagnant body of water, or a river, which could have such environmental conditions that it would set up a heat barrier across it, preventing fish from travelling up and down the river. The Pickering Generating Stations, A and B, will occupy 50 acres of the 50Ô acres. Mr. Fitchett stated that the pro- posed Darlington Nuclear sta- tion will be the same size of a plant. The Pickering station has two tower lines coming out of it. Mr. Fitchett states that this is an issue, in that at the present time the station on the Bruce is becoming power locked in that tower lines are needed, which is causing public controversy. The Pickering site is worth touring, visitors can make the tour any time in the summer between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and in the winter as an organized group. The station has to have 100,000 visitors a year to maintain its sign on Hwy. 401. Turning Waste Land into Forests Spring tree planting across Eastern Ontario will turn 6,100 acres of idle land into forests of 5,250,000 new trees, Phil Anslow, regional forester for Eastern Ontario, reports. The program, administered by the Ministry of Natural Resources, has rehabilitated about 28,000 acres of non- productive land in this part of tbe province. Anslow says, "Persistant cool temperatures this year held up the start of tree planting, but the operation is now going smoothly and should be finished in late May or early June." During the five week push, 350 men and women, including workers who are lifting and packing seedlings at the Kemptville Nursery, are be- ing ëmployed. The tree planters have only four or five weeks between frost retreat and the beginnin of the seedlings' rapid growt stage to get the seedlings transplanted. After rapid s pring growth starts, their chances of surviving the lifting-moving-transplanting process decrease. The largest percentage of new trees planted will be white spruce, followed by red pine, jack pine, larch and hardwoods, such as maple, poplar and basswood. More than a million trees will be planted in the Brock- ville and Cornwall areas. Around both Ottawa and Tweed 700,000 trees, will go into the ground, and in each of the Lanark and Napanee Natural Resources districts 600,00 seedlings will be plant-. ed. More than half the planting will be done on private land. Owners pay about a cent a tree, but must enter into an agreement with the province to maintain the new planta- tions at least 15 years. DeWitt Mobile Welding 46 Liberty St. N. 623-5703 BoWmanville to Pick the Best for Less! *8lnliob Apples Are a Specialty Choose from these Favourites: C.A. MacINTOSH C.A. RED DELICIOUS The Prices Will Delight You! WE ALSO HAVE IN STOCK: Fresh Sweet Cider-Honey e0 Ontario Maple Syrup N SEASON FRESH ASPARAGUS also e 0 FLOWERS AND VEGETABLE PLANTS RED'S FRUIT MARKET0 e Hwy. 115, South of Orono 10 Min. from Bowmanville . APPLES HANDLED ONLY BY USFROM TREE TO CUSTOMER" M Multi-Cultural Support and Citizenship-to preserve the cultural heritages of the people of Ontario and to assist newcomers to adjust to life in our province. Art Support- to assist the visual arts, music, literature, drama, dance and handicrafts, and to help stimulate popular interest in these activities. Sports and Fitness - to encourage ncreased physical fitness along with participation and enjoyment of athletic activities, and to assist Ontario athletes to develop their full potential. Libraries and Community Information - to increase access to information for residents of Ontario so that they can make the most effective use of facilities and programs available in their communities. Heritage Conservation - to protect archeological sites and encourage the preservation and appreciation of properties of architectural and historic significance. If you would like more information about the new Ministry or any of its programs, write to Ministry of Culture and Recreation Communications Branch Main Parliament Building, Room 347 Queen's Park Toronto, Ontario M7A lA1 Ministfy of Culture and Recreation Robert Welch, Minister Government of Ontario William Davis, Premier OUr ne M istr of Culture and Recreatio has five a or areas ofresp oinî lty. Here's what they are- and what they ean to ou