Eskom gives estimate for Koeberg's return to service

Jan

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Online soon is a month away... That's not good news now
 
You stationed at Koeberg? LOL
That's what the article states
“The current Koeberg Unit 2 Outage has progressed safely, and the planned work has been completed, with the start-up of the unit now in progress,” the power utility told MyBroadband.

“The unit is currently expected to return to service by mid-July and will require about ten days to reach full power.”
If it's returned ot service in Mid-July but takes ten days to reach full power that is about a month away.
 
You need to understand how nuclear stations work compared to coal-fired

Coal-fired uses a series of boilers and up to 10 can be lit and allowed to build up heat. This operation can be done safely in 3 to 4 days

A nuclear station has one heat exchanger with water pipes close to the core. All these components must be allowed to warm up slowly. 10 days is a reasonable period.

The aspect of safety in a nuclear plant is 1000 times more stringent. Sudden heat generation can weaken the structure

Water contaminated with radiation is what we don't want

This is one of the dangers that manifested itself at Fukujima after the accident. Millions of gallons of contaminated water sloshing about
 
but right now with the stage 6 to 8 Power cuts,
can start up be made shorter, surely its an emergency by now?
 
dont Nuclear plants have Diesel gensets for such things?
and right now its a emergency, quicker is better for return to service.
gensets are for the water pumps afaik. if those fail, kaboom (figuratively).
 
Koeberg makes huge difference not only due to the 900MW, but that fact that the 900MW is reliable as opposed to most of the coal fired powers stations. Nuclear is the way to go, with nuclear you root out the culture issues which is prevalent on coal units.
I do agree but what about the nuclear waste?
Japan wants to dump it in the ocean. Or is, maybe, already doing so.
 
but right now with the stage 6 to 8 Power cuts,
can start up be made shorter, surely its an emergency by now?
No, it's not just push a button and walla 900MW! its a nuclear plant, returning the plant to operation is done in stages. There are numerous check boxes to tick before the reactor achieves criticality and the unit is synchronized supplying load to the "grid".
I think the start-up probably needs some grid electricity.
Yes it does, each power station has a station transformer which feeds back into the station supplying the auxiliaries which power the machinery producing electricity.
dont Nuclear plants have Diesel gensets for such things?
and right now its a emergency, quicker is better for return to service.
Every power station has a diesel gen system, which kicks in the event of emergency power is required, worst case scenario. Quicker is not better with Nuclear plants, I think you'd make the Melkbostrand community nervous with such statements LOL
 
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