As it wraps up a refueling outage at its St. Lucie unit 2 reactor, Florida Power and Light sought to reassure ratepayers that the outage revealed less tube wear in steam generators than expected and that the wear does not pose a threat to the unit's ongoing operation.
Following the closure of California's San Onofre nuclear plant because of steam generator damage, the Florida plant has recently become the target of anti-nuclear groups. Unit 2's steam generators were replaced in 2007, and 3,745 of their 9,000 tubes showed signs of wear during its last refueling in 2012. On Friday, the Tampa Bay Times reported that 69 worn tubes were plugged in the most recent outage as a precaution. The plant will report more detailed information on individual wear indications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this year. An FPL spokesman told the paper that inspections turned up no safety or integrity issues or the tube-to-tube wear that resulted in a leak at San Onofre. Overall, he said, the wear was less than expected.
St. Lucie 2 was offline as of Friday, according to the NRC, but will soon exit the outage that began in March. The NRC recently denied a petition by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy to block a restart until the release of a report on the steam generators.