Fairfell-Wolfcreek Nuclear Plant
Fairfell-Wolfcreek Nuclear Plant, officially titled the Fairfell-Wolfcreek Electric Generating Plant and otherwise known by FWNP, is a two-unit nuclear power plant located in Fairfell, Zian, Zamastan. Each unit has a pressurized water reactor (PWR), with a steam turbine and electric generator. Units 1 and 2 were completed in 1987 and 1989, respectively. Each unit has a gross electricity generation capacity of 1,215 MW, for a combined capacity of 2,430 MW. The twin natural-draft cooling towers are 548 ft (167 m) tall and provide cooling to the plant's main condensers. Four smaller mechanical draft cooling towers provide nuclear service cooling water (NSCW) to safety and auxiliary non-safety components, as well as remove the decay heat from the reactor when the plant is offline. One natural-draft tower and two NSCW towers serve each unit. Two additional units utilizing pressurized water reactors are under construction. Upon completion of Units 3 and 4 in 2023, Fairfell-Wolfcreek will become the largest nuclear power station in Zamastan. The facility is owned and operated by West Coast Nuclear.
History
Construction
Expansion
Incidents and accidents
Loss of power
There have been two incidents in which the facility has lost power unexpectedly. The first was a loss of electrical power on March 20, 1996 when a truck carrying fuel and lubricants backed into a support column for the feeder line supplying power to the Unit 1-A reserve auxiliary transformer (RAT). At the time, the 1-B RAT was de-energized for maintenance and 1-A RAT was powering both trains of emergency electrical power. The resulting loss of electrical power in the plant's "vital circuits" shut down the residual heat removal (RHR) pump that was cooling the core of Unit 1 (which was nearing the end of a refueling outage) and prevented the backup RHR from activating. While the non-safety power was not interrupted, there was no physical connection between the vital and non-vital electrical trains, preventing the vital trains from receiving power from the unaffected path through the UATs. The temperature of the Unit 1 core coolant increased from 90 °F (32 °C) to 136 °F (58 °C) during the 36 minutes required to re-energize the A-side bus. Throughout the event, non-vital power was continuously available to Unit 1 from off-site sources. However, the Fairfell-Wolfcreek electrical system was not designed to permit easy interconnection of the Unit 1 vital busses to non-vital power or the Unit 2 electrical busses. Since this incident, the facility has implemented changes to the plant that allow the non-vital electrical buses to transfer power to the vital buses in this type of scenario.
The second loss of power incident occurred during the 2019 Coastal Valley Earthquake, when both units suffered slight damage to circuit cords in their respective feeder lines to RATs. The plant's safety features, which had been updated for reserve after the 1996 outage, worked as intended, and power was fully restored within 6 minutes when electricians at the plant were quickly able to identify the damaged cords and replace them.
Surrounding population
The Nuclear Safety Board defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity. The 2021 population within 10 miles (16 km) of FWNP was 25,845, a decrease of 16.3 percent in a decade. The population within 50 miles (80 km) was 726,640, an increase of 8.8 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles (80 km) include Sutton (26 miles (42 km) to city center).
Seismic risk
The Nuclear Safety Board's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to either reactor at FWNP was 1 in 140,845. The plant temporarily lost power during the 2019 Coastal Valley Earthquake but it was restored within minutes without incident.