A $1 billion upgrade for Turkey Point (Fl. nuke plant)

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/20/2508992/a-1-billion-upgrade-for-turkey.html


As FPL ramps up a $1 billion overhaul of its 40-year-old facility on south Biscayne Bay, the power plant’s work force is swelling by thousands.


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It’s got nothing to do with FPL’s controversial plan to add two new reactors to the site. This work is all part of an “up rating’’ that will allow the utility to coax more power from its current two reactors, amounting to a massive overhaul of the four-decade-old facility.

All the major systems outside the reactor building are being updated or replaced — transformers, heat exchangers, pumps, valves, condensers, steam pipes and twin 1-million horsepower generators that are the size of school buses. Combined, they make up most of what nuclear engineers call the “secondary plant.’’

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Though FPL won’t be able to amp up the power until it receives final approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and completes the overhaul sometime next year, the work is already generating economic ripple effects.

The normal work force of about 800 FPL employees has swelled with another 3,200 contractors over the last year, a number expected to peak at around 5,000 workers by the end of January. Many workers are from outside South Florida but they’re renting homes and apartments, shopping and eating out, said Mary Finlan, executive director of the Greater Homestead/Florida City Chamber of Commerce.

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good news but

Like anything to do with nuclear power, the project, being bankrolled by a controversial rate increase approved in October by state regulators, has drawn some questions.

For environmentalists, the big one is whether it will worsen an underground plume of salty water that has pushed miles inland and threatens drinking water wells in South Miami-Dade.