Nuclear Power Plant Water Treatment is Hot Topic Hour on Thursday July 1, 2010
Nuclear power plants require a large quantity of high quality water for operation. The water is used for steam boiler feed make up, reactor cooling, fuel cooling ponds, condensate cooling and in a variety of auxiliary circuits. Most of the water use is similar to water use in the typical fossil fueled power plant, however, nuclear plants seem to have higher standards placed on them for both water consumption and water quality. For example, boiler feed water quality, always an important issue at any plant given the potential corrosion problems, can be even more important for a nuclear plant given the inevitable access problems for maintenance of the reactor pressure vessel.
The quantity of clean water available is also becoming an issue as states move to restrict or outright ban the use of sea and fresh water for cooling in power plants. In May of this year, the state of California issued regulations to restrict marine water use by existing power plants and this comes one month after regulators in New York denied a key water-quality (water use) permit that Entergy Corp. needs to continue operating the Indian Point Nuclear Plant. Although these water restrictions apply primarily to “once through” cooling systems, it is clear that availability of water is becoming an increasing concern for power plant operators and as freshwater becomes less available for power plant use, new supplies from marginal or impaired sources that will require more capable and large water treatment facilities will be needed. The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, located in the Arizona desert, uses treated effluent from the municipal wastewater treatment plants of Phoenix and other local municipalities. Will this be the solution for the future, and if so, what does it mean for the water treatment facilities at the power plants?
The following speakers will discuss the special needs of nuclear plants, the performance of systems currently used relative to the quality of water produced and the operating cost, reliability and waste produced as well as new technologies being developed or tested. They may also comment on the future water treatment needs of nuclear plants given the probable water shortages and strategies that might be adopted to meet their water requirements.
Gregg L. Poppe, Global Application Development Specialist, Industrial Water and Power Generation, Dow Water & Process Solutions will discuss some of the trends he sees in the area of make-up water demineralization at power plants. In addition to being safe, reliable, and efficient, there is a growing trend for power plants to be "green". As a result, there is fast-growing interest for water purification technologies such as UF and EDI for the production of make-up de-mineralized water that reduce the use of chemicals on-site, generating less waste while also saving operating expense.
Timothy J. Rittof, Senior Technical Fellow, HPD, LLC at Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies. Control of steam cycle water at any power generating station, especially nuclear, is of paramount importance. But there are other water streams that must be dealt with both now, and in future nuclear stations. This discussion provides information on techniques available for preparing reclaim water for power plant use, volume reduction of wastewater streams (laundry waste, demineralizer regeneration waste), and recycle of water from cooling tower blowdown.
Tony Rossi, Global Boiler Product Manager at GE Power & Water, Water & Process Technologies will describe a polymeric dispersant for re-circulating PWR steam generator iron deposit control. During operation of the steam generator (SG) in a re-circulating Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), the vast majority (typically > 95%) of the iron corrosion product transported by the feed water into the SG remains in the generator and accumulates on the tube and tube support surfaces. The accumulation of corrosion products, which consist primarily of iron oxide, can negatively impact the efficiency, reliability and cost of operation and maintenance in the secondary side steam generators in re-circulating PWRs. His discussion will focus on the development and qualification of a unique, high-purity, polymeric dispersant polymeric dispersant that is designed to minimize iron fouling and accumulation on the SG internal surfaces, and promote iron oxide transport through the SG, with removal of a large fraction of incoming iron contaminant (typically 40 - 60%) with the SG blowdown stream.
To register for the "Hot Topic Hour" on July 1, 2010 at 10 a.m. CDT (Chicago time), click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/FGDnetoppbroch/Default1.htm
Bob McIlvaine
President
847 784 0012 ext 112
rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com