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37.64 |
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| 6/17/03 4:01:00 PM ET |
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FirstEnergy delays nuke
test, still sees Aug restart
Reuters, 06.17.03, 5:17
PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO, June 17
(Reuters) - FirstEnergy Corp. (nyse: FE
- news
- people)
still aims to restart its troubled Davis-Besse nuclear power plant
in August despite a delay for a critical performance test, a company
spokesman said on Tuesday.
A
weeklong test of the operating pressure and temperature in the Ohio
plant's atomic reactor and cooling system to ensure there are no
leaks has been pushed back to mid-July, said Todd Schneider, a
spokesman for Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy.
The test had been planned for the first half of
June.
"We are still aiming for
a restart of the plant in August," Schneider
said.
Davis-Besse was forced to
close in February 2002 when inspectors discovered that boric acid
leaking through cracks in the reactor vessel head had eaten a hole
nearly all the way through the reactor's 6-inch thick steel
lid.
FirstEnergy has replaced
the lid, but repairs and other work, including an investigation of
the plant's "safety culture," have caused the company to miss
repeated targets for resumed operations.
The company had planned to replace two pumps before
the reactor test but instead decided to modify the pumps before the
procedure, said Jan Strasma, a spokesman for the
NRC.
The NRC has the final say
on when Davis-Besse can resume commercial
operations.
In another
development, the NRC said in a letter to FirstEnergy on Monday that
an inspection at Davis-Besse completed May 17 identified three cases
of "very low safety significance" that violated NRC procedures and
technical rules.
Delays in
putting Davis-Besse back in operation are likely to cost FirstEnergy
more than $400 million, including the cost of buying electricity to
replace the plant's 925 megawatts of generating capacity -- power
for more than 900,000 homes.
Copyright 2003, Reuters News
Service
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