Perry plant tries to control its latest radioactive leak

Friday, April 14, 2000 By SUSAN JAFFE

PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

NORTH PERRY - The Perry nuclear power plant may shut down for two weeks if operators cannot control a radioactive fuel leak detected last week, according to the reactors owner, FirstEnergy Corp.

The small leak in one of Perrys 64,406 pencil-thin fuel rods is the third discovered this year and the 13th since the plant began operating in 1987. In 1993, a 25-inch crack in a fuel rod forced the plant to close for 59 days.

The 13-foot rods, made of a heat-resistant zirconium alloy, hold pellets of radioactive uranium that create heat to boil water into steam. The steam turns a turbine to produce electricity.

Perry spokesman Todd Schneider said the problem poses no danger to the public or workers. The leak was found inside the reactor, and Schneider said there has been no increase in the normal amount of radiation the plant is permitted to release.

Operators will cut power to 65 percent this weekend so they can locate the leak and reduce it by slowing the nuclear reaction in the fuel. The plant should return to full power by Monday, according to Schneider.

The same process occurred in January and February when similar leaks were detected after operators noticed an increase in ra dioactive gases inside the reactor.

"Hopefully we will be able to suppress the leak," said Schneider. "We wont be sure of our next steps until this weekend."

Depending on the location of the new leak, Schneider said the company may decide to replace the defective fuel soon instead of waiting until the next refueling, scheduled for February 2001. About a third of the nuclear fuel is depleted every 18 to 24 months and must be replaced, at a cost of about $70 million.

During the refueling last April, FirstEnergy installed special filters on the new fuel to protect it from debris in the purified cooling water that circulates around the fuel at a rate of 218,000 gallons a minute. Operators believed that fingernail-size metal shavings bombarding the rods eventually caused pinhole leaks.

Last year, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear safety group based in Washington, petitioned the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to close Perry so that the defective fuel could be replaced. The scientists group argued that nuclear plants should not operate with damaged fuel, even though radiation leaks inside the Perry plant were well below NRC limits.

The NRC decided that the work could wait a few months until the April refueling.

E-mail: sjaffe@plaind.com Phone: 1-800-275-5253 )2000 THE PLAIN DEALER. Used with permission.

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-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), April 14, 2000