POWER August 2010 - 12

AREVA Installs Finnish EPR Reactor Vessel
This June, AREVA installed the reactor pressure vessel (Figure
6)-the core of the unit-at the world's first EPR project, which
is under construction in Finland. Now the company will engage
in a flurry of installation activities for heavy nuclear components,
including lifting into the reactor the first of the four steam generators.
Most of the work is expected to be completed by the end
of 2012, with power production beginning in 2013.
In a recent update on its 2010 income outlook, the French company
said that an extra provision of some €400 million for the project
would likely put it in the red again for the first half of 2010. The
project for Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, originally due to
come online in 2009, is already three years behind schedule and
has been consistently plagued with faulty materials and planning
problems since construction began in 2005. The delays have been
6. Reacting to the pressure. AREVA has installed the reactor
pressure vessel at the Olkiluoto 3 plant under construction in Finland,
the site of the world's first EPR. The steel component weighs 420 metric
tons and measures 5.3 meters in diameter and 10.6 meters high.
Installed using the permanent polar crane and a large movable crane,
the remarkable technical feat follows the project's last major milestone
in September 2009, when the reactor dome was fitted. AREVA now
expects the plant will be operational in 2013. Courtesy: AREVA
first Section 10 permit ever to a commercial wave-powered demonstration
facility planned for installation in the Gulf of Mexico.
The novel offshore platform, dubbed the SEADOG, will use a buoy
and piston mechanism combined with a water wheel to generate
electricity and desalinate water.
The SEADOG is essentially based on an air-filled buoyancy block
within a cylindrical chamber. The chamber stays relatively stationary
while the block rises and falls with the waves. The motion of the block
moves a piston within a cylinder, drawing in and expelling water with
every stroke. By adjusting the piston size, the same size pump can
be deployed to pump larger amounts of water to lower elevations, or
smaller amounts to greater elevations, the device's owner, Minnesotabased
Independent Natural Resources Inc. (INRI) says.
According to the company, the planned facility will comprise a
150-foot by 75-foot platform installed 1 mile offshore (Figure 7) that
will be equipped with 18 wave pumps. Each pump, 7 feet in diameter,
will send water up through three water wheels connected to a
generator. The pumps themselves will work 25 feet below the surface
of the water and be able to generate about 60 kW. About 4 kW of this
power will be used to run a standard reverse osmosis desalination
machine to produce 3,000 gallons of freshwater per day.
The SEADOG permit was awarded less than eight months after
the company received the first-ever state offshore wave energy
lease from the Texas General Land Office for the facility. INRI had
already installed a prototype of the pump in the Gulf of Mexico in
2007. The company claims that modest waves ranging from only
6 inches to 6 feet created enough movement to allow the SEADOG
pump to lift water approximately 110 to 125 feet. It hopes to put
the larger platform in the water by the end of this year.
The wave energy project will be one of the first to be deployed in
the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. has been trailing the world in developing
marine energy projects, though some companies have made significant
advances. New Jersey-based developer Ocean Power Technologies
recently launched a $4 million project that could become the
nation's first commercial wave power farm off the coast of Reedsport,
Ore. And in May the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a
preliminary permit for Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Central Coast WaveConnect
pilot program off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif.
But wave energy projects continue to be at the mercy of fundcostly:
The original fixed-price contract for the unit signed by the
AREVA-Siemens supplier consortium in December 2003 was for €3.2
billion, and last year AREVA reported that the total cost of the flagship
third-generation reactor had risen to some €5.3 billion.
The EPR, a third-generation pressurized water reactor, is also
under construction at Flamanville, France, and Taishan in China.
AREVA told POWER in May that the two Taishan EPRs were faring
well, with concrete for the second reactor recently poured by
Chinese utility CGNPC. Those two reactors are now expected to be
commissioned in late 2013 and 2014.
Regarding the Flamanville 3 reactor, AREVA said it had reached
two major milestones this year: delivering the pressurizer relief
tank and putting in the first vent drain system tank (whose purpose
is to collect primary recoverable radioactive effluents as well
as some discharges from safety valves). The plant's owner, Électricité
de France, maintained in January that the reactor was on track
to be completed in 2012, with operation beginning by 2013. However,
French media Le Figaro recently reported, citing an unnamed
source, that the project would likely see more than a two-year
delay because it was faced with numerous " technical obstacles. "
Wave Energy Device to Tap Marine
Energy in Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year awarded its
12
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POWER | August 2010
ing from public, private, and government entities. Large initial
installation costs hinder even promising projects from becoming
operational. And even projects that succeed technologically have
failed for lack of funding. A prime example is the world's first
commercial wave farm, which opened in 2008 off the coast of
Portugal. The 2.5-MW Aguçadoura Wave Park ran into financial
difficulties last year and was suspended indefinitely.
7. On the crest of a wave. The SEADOG, an offshore platform
planned for installation in the Gulf of Mexico this year, will employ 18 underwater
pumps to extract mechanical energy from each wave and use that
energy to desalinate water. Courtesy: Independent Natural Resources Inc.
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POWER August 2010

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