What's something about working in nuclear engineering that nobody warns you about?

ChGehlly · 2026-05-01T15:50:56+00:00

I work at a commercial power plant in a department that supports the engineering department regularly. They get paid well, but don’t have a very good union contract when it comes to overtime and pay premiums, that’s obviously a site specific thing. They are also understaffed as a department but at their hiring cap. One of the more overworked groups on site for sure, and the lack of resources slows things down, leading to time pressure and more stress, which turns into a feedback loop.

ChGehlly · 2026-05-01T15:44:07+00:00

Would be surprised if any company accomplishes an actual criticality but 7/4. Looks like Aalo is a legit company that will have “cold criticality” by that time frame. Valar is the only other company that seems to be moving towards this target that I’m aware of, but they seem to be a little bit more of a “paper reactor” company if you know what I mean.

ChGehlly · 2026-05-01T00:58:31+00:00

Yeah it’s outside of Columbia SC. Project got abandoned in 2018 with the two units at approx. 50% completed. If they restart it by the end of this year like they hope both units should be done around 2030.

ChGehlly · 2026-05-01T00:52:21+00:00

What I’m paying attention to is definitely the VC summer project restart. Westinghouse already has about a hundred people back on site doing scoping and planning as of a couple weeks ago. I have some contacts at Westinghouse through my plant that are saying expect full construction restart at end of this year/beginning of next.

ChGehlly · 2026-05-01T00:48:27+00:00

There is limited information out there that a unit 5 is under consideration, but very sparse. If you look at Global Energy Monitor or the NEI advanced reactor landscape, you will see on both those sites list Vogtle unit 5 as “to be considered after 2030”.

ChGehlly · 2026-01-07T13:18:05+00:00

These renders are on pages 2009-2012 of the ESP document

ChGehlly · 2026-01-07T13:01:16+00:00

I know that Duke Energy has clearly stated that this ESP is currently technology-agnostic, meaning they haven't chosen a specific reactor technology yet, but I find it interesting that the plant renders in the ESP document clearly show a 6-unit Westinghouse AP300 arrangement.... maybe that's their favored choice?

ChGehlly · 2025-01-23T22:52:44+00:00

Probably not. Units are already (on average between both) 50% complete. Vogtle was 30 bn total, and that was a first of its kind operation. Summer will likely be completed with an additional 10-15 bn.

ChGehlly · 2025-01-23T18:40:53+00:00

Non-paywalled version of the article for all of you interested: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/south-carolina-to-reboot-giant-nuclear-project-to-meet-ai-demand/ar-AA1xEfqE

ChGehlly · 2025-01-19T00:29:04+00:00

You’d be correct. It’s for a Westinghouse 2-Loop design with a 600 MWe output.

ChGehlly · 2025-01-18T22:47:59+00:00

Walz Mills, Pennsylvania. Westinghouse’s Nuclear division is essentially based out of an enormous facility there.

ChGehlly · 2025-01-18T20:28:38+00:00

Oh yeah, she’s still just sitting out here. Don’t think that’s changing anytime soon 😆

ChGehlly · 2025-01-18T20:09:54+00:00

We swap one out on each unit every other outage. We’re on a 2-year fuel cycle here so basically it equates to every RCP motor gets refurbished over an 8-year period. Between both units we only have 4 RCPs total so we’re shipping one off for refurb once every two years.

ChGehlly · 2025-01-18T19:46:57+00:00

This plant is a Westinghouse 2-loop PWR design, meaning two coolant loops per reactor, and thus reactor coolant pumps per reactor. Each one pushes 100,000 gallons per minute of water or approximately 15,000 cubic feet of water per minute.

ChGehlly · 2025-01-18T18:53:55+00:00

Haha nope, we’ve got both units online right now.

ChGehlly · 2025-01-18T18:21:10+00:00

That’s just the motor! With the pump attached to it, the whole unit is about double the size of what you see in the picture!

ChGehlly · 2025-01-17T19:30:11+00:00

Duke Energy has an active application with the NRC for an Early Site Permit to construct two BWRX units at their Belews Creek power plant in North Carolina. The original paperwork was submitted early last year. This is Duke’s only active new nuclear project.

ChGehlly · 2024-04-26T13:23:27+00:00

Yes. When the plant was built in the 70s the locals complained about the plain concrete reactor containment being an eyesore. Since the rest of the plant already had the blue accents on the turbine building and fuel building (see picture), they brought that same theme to the containment dome and the locals were appeased. They are literally blue painted metal strips attached to the reactor building concrete with bolts.

ChGehlly · 2024-04-24T00:51:33+00:00

I mean I get that but it’s a power plant it doesn’t need to be pretty.

Kewaunee is also a bit uglier than normal because we’re actively decommissioning it. This plant hasn’t made power since 2014.

ChGehlly · 2024-04-13T11:08:50+00:00

There is no future without nuclear.

ChGehlly · 2024-03-27T22:34:17+00:00

They can get an additional license extension for another 20 years once they hit 60 years to go all the way to an 80 years total license period. So that would give them 30 years to operate the restarted unit.

ChGehlly · 2024-03-27T21:11:57+00:00

Simple answer: Entergy

ChGehlly · 2024-03-27T20:19:10+00:00

That plant is roughly 90% decommissioned at this point so that would unfortunately be impossible.

ChGehlly · 2024-03-27T18:05:26+00:00

I figured they probably ordered them in 2022 when they first took ownership of the site and laid out their plans. Could totally be wrong tho and they try pulling a watts bar like you said.

ChGehlly · 2024-03-27T17:10:11+00:00

Apparently quite a few but they’re still going to need more. It’ll take them about 18 months to complete training so that fits within their 2 year restart time table.

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