Nuclear Plant Blunder Costs $2.5 Billion

You can imagine that any construction related to a nuclear power plant is highly risky. After all, a mistake that might cause a minor delay on a normal construction project could be devastatingly dangerous on a nuclear plant.
 
But sometimes saving money takes precedence over common sense.
 
The owners of nuclear power plant in Florida determined they could save $15 million by self-managing the replacement of the plant's boiler rather than accepting the bids of either of the two construction firms that have done all of the 34 other nuclear power plant boiler replacements in the United States. Perhaps that frugality is not related to the giant blunder that followed, but that seems unlikely.



Florida Nuclear Power Plant

Even though its bid to manage the entire project was rejected, one of the two bidders, Bechtel, was hired to manage the construction portion of the boiler replacement.

One of Bechtel's managers noticed that the owners, who had hired an engineering firm that was inexperienced in this type of work, were planning to use a substantially different procedure to cut into the retaining wall of the plant than was used in the 34 other boiler replacements. His primary concern was treatment of the steel tendons that run through the 42-inch-thick retaining wall.

The retaining wall is the last line of defense keeping radioactive water from leaking out of the plant. The steel tendons reinforce the wall's strength, and in the 34 previous boiler replacements, the tendons were carefully removed in a particular way before the wall was cut into. For this job, though, the tendons were removed in a different fashion, and the manager was worried.

He sent several emails expressing his concerns to the owners...but they decided to go ahead with the plan.

In October 2009, the hydrodemolition company, which had no experience cutting into nuclear containment walls, began cutting into the wall. Workers soon noticed a crack in the concrete, but they thought perhaps it was already there before they started. Chunks of concrete began falling off, whereas in the other 34 jobs the concrete broke up in small pieces. Soon water unexpectedly began rushing through the wall. Clearly, the job had gone terribly wrong!

The power company states that their management of the job did not lead to the damage, but the bottom line is this: Repairs have already cost $2.5 billion, and the plant may never restart. Quite a high price to pay to save $15 million!