| Refuelling a go Bruce Power has begun refuelling Unit 4 at the Bruce A generating station after receiving permission from an officer designated by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to start the next phase of the Bruce A Restart project. "Clearly this is another important milestone for our restart program," said Duncan Hawthorne, Bruce Power's Chief Executive Officer. "With permission to refuel now granted, we can begin to work on systems that could not be commissioned until we got to this key stage." Hawthorn said the project has been very complicated and praised those working on it for bringing it in "on time and on budget. "A lot of man hours went into this," he said. "It is their (employees') efforts that got us where we are today." Bruce Power crews began loading fuel into Unit 4 the evening of Jan. 14 after the CNSC certified the team of shift supervisors and nuclear operators who will be responsible for the two Bruce A units in what is known as a guaranteed shutdown state with new fuel. It will take about 45 days for an enormous fuelling machine to install 6,240 fuel bundles into 480 fuel channels on the reactor face. When refuelling is complete on Unit 4, employees will turn their attention to Unit 3. Pending further regulatory approvals, Hawthorne said Unit 4 could be returned to service by April, followed by Unit 3 before the summer's period of peak demand. Together the two units can generate another 1,500 mega watts of much-needed electricity for the Ontario market. Since assuming control of the Bruce site in May of 2001, Bruce Power has enlisted more than 1,100 employees and contractors to work on the $400 million project to restart two of Bruce A's four reactors. Of that cost the price to fill Unit 4 with new fuel is about $15 million. The uranium is supplied by Cameco, with the fabrication of the fuel bundles done by Zircatec of Port Hope. At this time Bruce Power has no plans to restart Units 1 and 2. Unit 4 first went into service on Jan. 18, 1979 but was laid up on March 16, 1998 by the previous operators of the Bruce site. Unit 3 went into service on Feb. 4, 1978 and was laid up on April 9, 1998. All of the systems necessary to safely control and monitor the reactor in its fuelled state had already been returned to service in preparation for fuel loading. Last week the CNSC accepted the company's Environmental Assessment Screening Report, ruling that the restart of Units 3 and 4 is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects. Bruce Power appeared before the CNSC in Ottawa on Jan.16, where commissioners received an overview of the work done so far and Bruce Power's future plans. The next hearing will be held Feb. 26-27 for final licensing on the Bruce A Restart project. At that hearing intervenors will be able to make both positive and negative comments on the project. |