$12.8-billion Darlington Nuclear Project goes ahead

A massive refurbishment of the four nuclear reactors at the Darlington Station east of Toronto is going ahead. Ontario Power Corporation said it is ready to start on the $12.8-billion investment on a “mid-life” refurbishment of this “clean-power workhorse,” on January 11. The station is located at Clarington, about 80 kilometres east of Toronto, on the shores of Lake Ontario.

SNC-Lavalin in a 50/50 joint venture with Aecon Group has been awarded the contract to proceed with the execution phase, officially called the “Re-tube and Feeder Replacement.”

The joint venture has spent four years preparing for the refurbishment in great detail, (no doubt in an effort to avoid the very expensive overruns that have attended other nuclear plant refurbishments).

The preparations included preparing a full-scale reactor mock-up, which was used to allow the team to test specialized tools and to train workers who will use them. OPG say that the scope, schedule and cost of the project have been developed “to a level of detail not seen on prior projects,” and that “lessons learned from other major projects have been incorporated.”

OPG also said that the contracts have been structured to ensure that its partners “are accountable for price and schedule.” It has two independent oversight organizations involved, one reporting to the OPG board of directors, and one reporting directly to the Ontario Ministry of Energy.

Scores of consultant and construction companies are supplying the project, including: M.G. Burke Consulting, Babcock & Wilcox, NA Engineering, Intech, AMEC, Faithful & Gould, Black & McDonald, Worley Parsons, Tetra Tech, RCM Technologies, Algal Engineering and E.S. Fox.

The refurbishment will be done over the next 10 years. The work involves shutting down each reactor, removing fuel and heavy water and “islanding” the reactor from the other operating units using physical barriers. The reactor components are then replaced, which includes removing and replacing 480 fuel channel assemblies which will be processed and “placed into appropriate storage containers.” In background information OPG says, “Removing and replacing the reactor components is the critical part of the outage.”

The turbine and steam generators will also be disassembled, then rebuilt or replaced.

OPG says the refurbishment will extend the life of the 1990s-era CANDU reactors by 30 years. It will give, says OPG, “clean, reliable, base load power, at a cost lower than other alternatives considered.” It said the project is expected to cost $1.2 billion less than its original budgeted cost. Darlington’s 3,512 MWe capacity provides 20% of the province’s electricity.

OPG has also said that it intends to continue operating the nearby Pickering Nuclear Station, also east of Toronto, until 2024.

Environmentalist groups who are opposed to nuclear power say that the province should take a different approach, such as importing green hydro power from its neighbour, Quebec.

Quebec engineers in top ASHRAE awards

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has announced the winners of this year’s Technology Awards.

Once gain, a Quebec firm is among the select few, who will be presented with their awards at the ASHRAE 2016 Winter Conference to be held January 23-27 in Orlando, Florida.

Pageau Morel and Associates of Montreal (Nicolas Lemire, ing., president), has received first place in the new educational facilities category for the Anne-Marie Edward Science Building at John Abbot College in St-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec.

The building is named after Anne-Marie Edward, a student at John Abbot who had been pursuing an engineering degree when she became a victim of the 1989 shooting at Ecole Polytechnique.

The six-storey laboratory building at John Abbot College combines energy systems, using geothermal wells, electrical heating and cooling, natural gas hot water heating and solar preheating. Potable water consumption is reduced with the use of low flow plumbing fixtures.

It maximizes resources through reuse and recuperation, as follows:

• reuse of return air as compensation air in laboratories
• reuse of coil condensation water to humidify exhaust air
• recuperation on both general and laboratory exhausts
• recuperation through heat pump extraction and storage in stratified tanks
• recuperation of rainwater and fan-coil condensation water.

ASHRAE’s citation notes that laboratory ventilation requirements and large glazing surfaces can have devastating effects on energy efficiency. Nonetheless, the building’s actual energy use is 45% lower than the baseline case and 10% lower than the simulation.

The other four ASHRAE Technology Awards went to U.S. engineers and projects, Cyclone Energy Group for the Walgreens Net Zero Store in Evanston, Illinois (new commercial buildings); Integral Group for DPR Construction’s San Francisco Net Positive Energy Office (existing commercial buildings); Port of Seattle for the Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) Airport Pre-Co`nditioned Air (new industrial facilities and processes); and Ecotope for the Stack House Apartments in Seattle, Washington (residential).

Problems on new Nipigon River bridge

Ontario’s Transportation Minister, Steven Del Duca, was due to head up to the Nipigon River Bridge in northwestern Ontario on Wednesday.

Part of the steel decking of the bridge lifted almost 60 centimeters on January 10, reportedly during very high winds. No-one was injured but the crossing was closed for almost a day, which severed the Trans-Canada Highway and “cut Canada in half,” said one media report.

The $106-million project is still under construction and has earned a high profile as Ontario’s first cable-stayed bridge.

Initially reports suggested that the cold temperatures had caused an expansion joint to fail, and that a gust of wind had lifted the deck from its base. At the end of Monday, Ontario Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle told CTV News, “Apparently the bolt that holds the girders in place, which keeps the bridge level, broke in some fashion and that lifted the bridge up.”

By Monday crews had re-leveled the bridge temporarily using the weight of 110 highway barriers. That allowed a single lane to be reopened to traffic in both directions, but only for cars and regular weight trucks.

Gary Weiss spoke of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation said that the bridge had many redundancies and is really flexible.

The crossing is on Highway 11 located near the municipality of Greenstone, about 250 kilometers northeast of Thunder Bay. It links Ontario to western Canada and carries around 1,300 trucks a day carrying goods worth $100 million. When the bridge was closed trucks were diverted through Sault Ste. Marie and the United States.

The NDP MP said the incident demonstrated the need for more infrastructure in northern Ontario.

Construction on the bridge started in the summer of 2013. The westbound side was opened to two-lane traffic in November last year and completion is set for 2017. It has three towers rising 70 metres above the river, and a main span 139 meters long. McCormick Rankin and Buckland & Taylor are the design engineers.