Ontario Nuclear Update - World Thermal Plant Record!

OVERKILL

$100 Site Donor 2021
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
57,913
Location
Ontario, Canada
This morning Darlington Unit 1, which was officially commissioned on November 14th, 1992 and had previously, on Tuesday, September 15th, 2020, broken the world record runtime for a nuclear unit at 963 days, has broken the world thermal generating record, which was 1,073 days and 1 hour and held by Unit 4 at Stanwell Power Station, a coal generating facility in Australia.

Unit 1 is still going. The next milestone if she doesn't go down for maintenance will be 3 years. She has produced ~22TWh so far, uninterrupted.

119663295_1239152099800073_1631872659967251443_o.jpg


Previous thread here:
 
Last edited:
Congratulations on your record run. Hope you can keep it going until you set a new thermal plant record. Do you not have to shut down and refuel every 18 months?
One small correction, the Australian thermal record run was beat and to the best of my knowledge the new record is still holding at 1093 days, set by the Tennessee Valley Authority's Shawnee Unit 6. The Shawnee unit is small 150 MW coal fired unit at a plant in Kentucky, built in the 1950's. Forgive the fuzzy photo. Its' from google maps.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2021-01-03 105927.jpg
    Screenshot 2021-01-03 105927.jpg
    24.6 KB · Views: 14
Last edited:
Congratulations on your record run. Hope you can keep it going until you set a new record. Do you not have to shut down and refuel every 18 months?
One small correction, the Australian record run was beat and to the best of my knowledge is still held by the Tennessee Valley Authority's Shawnee Unit 6 at 1093 days. It's a coal plant in Kentucky built in the 1950's. Forgive the fuzzy photo. Its' from google maps.

Guinness has Stanwell as the record holder. Often times these records are broken by interruptions on the generation side, so that coal plant may have had the thermal side continuously running but it didn't break the generating record.

Here's the Guinness Record:


And no, CANDU's refuel online, so what takes them down is typically maintenance or a trip.
 
The Shawnee run is in fact the length of time the generator was tied to the grid. From breaker close to breaker open. It's hard to see in the photo but it happened about 5 years after the one listed in Guinness. The run ended when ice in the switchyard pushed a connector apart and forced a trip.

But keeping a big nuke running that long with all it's complexity is just astounding . And being able to refuel online - now that's some cool engineering. Sounds like an awesome place to get to work.
 
The Shawnee run is in fact the length of time the generator was tied to the grid. From breaker close to breaker open. It's hard to see in the photo but it happened about 5 years after the one listed in Guinness. The run ended when ice in the switchyard pushed a connector apart and forced a trip.

But keeping a big nuke running that long with all it's complexity is just astounding . And being able to refuel online - now that's some cool engineering. Sounds like an awesome place to get to work.

Any idea as to why was it never submitted to Guinness? I've made an inquiry with them (Guinness) as to the reason for its omission in case they are aware of it. I expect OPG, now with the knowledge of of this 1,093 day figure, will set that as the new target, which is only 20 days from now and two days off from 3 years.
 
The Shawnee run is in fact the length of time the generator was tied to the grid. From breaker close to breaker open. It's hard to see in the photo but it happened about 5 years after the one listed in Guinness. The run ended when ice in the switchyard pushed a connector apart and forced a trip.

But keeping a big nuke running that long with all it's complexity is just astounding . And being able to refuel online - now that's some cool engineering. Sounds like an awesome place to get to work.

OK, Darlington 1 has now tied it, we are at 1,093 days right now and it is still going. Next milestone is 3 years. We'll see where she goes after that. It's not scheduled to go down for refurb for at least another year, they may try for it at which point it will be untouchable.
 
LOL....You and I or anyone living will never see it.
Impressive record. Is that a PWR reactor. Before being shut down TMI would routinely run 2 years. Due to enrichment and design that was about the limit.

It's a PHWR, pressure tube design, natural uranium, refuels online, which is why it's capable of significantly longer runs than a PWR or BWR. CANDU's have historically held most of the "longest run" positions with the odd entry from some funky designs like a UK graphite moderated unit that also refuels online. This run has blown any of the previous records out of the water and it is continuing. I think there's hope of 2,000 days, but that'll be unlikely unless they push the refurb out.

I'm skeptical on fusion too. Getting useful power out of it will be incredibly difficult even if/when they manage to get it over the 1:1 threshold.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JC1
Thats some seriously reliable base load. Awesome combo of atomic and mechanical engineering.

What's the first big parts that go at 2K?
 
Thats some seriously reliable base load. Awesome combo of atomic and mechanical engineering.

What's the first big parts that go at 2K?

Can you clarify what you are asking? If it is in respect to the 2,000 days remark it's not a limit of the unit per se, but rather it is scheduled to go down for its mid-life refurbishment before that milestone is reached that's the issue. Unit 3 is down right now getting done, prior to that was Unit 2. Bruce currently has Unit 6 down for the same reason, though the refurb at Bruce is a project larger in scope and the overall life extension activity is slated to deliver uprated capacity as well as a lifespan that approaches 100 years.
 
Back
Top