We Announce the Largest Initial Loading Campaign in the U.S.

We are pleased to announce the successful completion of the largest initial loading campaign at an operating reactor in the U.S. On November 10th, the twelfth and final HI-STORM 100 cask for this campaign was successfully placed on the ISFSI pad at D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant (DC Cook). Completion of this loading campaign marks the close of the first campaign of a long-term project awarded by American Electric Power (AEP) to Holtec International (Holtec®) to assist AEP in establishing the dry spent fuel storage program at DC Cook. Holtec’s scope included performing many key facets of the engineering effort, fabrication of all ancillary equipment, fabrication of 16 HI-STORM 100 systems, completion of the NRC Dry Runs, and completion the loading operations for the first campaign at DC Cook.

Implementation of the dry spent fuel storage program at DC Cook ensued during the months of August through November with DC Cook’s first loading campaign. During this initial campaign the cask loading team safely loaded 384 PWR fuel assemblies into twelve MPC-32 canisters for safe storage within Holtec’s vertically ventilated HI-STORM 100 overpacks. This loading campaign provided a 157% increase in the DC Cook spent fuel pool capacity, removing 236.03 kW from the spent fuel pool, and providing sufficient capacity to the plant to allow full core off-loads for each refueling into 2015.

DC Cook set an ambitious overall dose goal budget for their first campaign of 3.404 Rem for the twelve cask campaign, which is under 285 mrem per cask. Attesting to the extensive experience and talent of the members of Holtec’s site services team, the exceptional support of the site radiation protection staff, and the exemplary stewardship of the project provided by AEP’s Mr. Paul Carteaux and Mr. Gary Weber, this goal was met with ample margins and without a single safety incident; touting the lowest dose cask loading at a mere 165 mrem. Mr. Larry Weber, AEP’s Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, stated “AEP/D.C. Cook and Holtec worked very well together to get these great results. These results don’t happen by accident.”

The project also features the successful implementation of a Holtec designed Lateral Seismic Restraint (LSR) System. The LSR provides lateral support and stability to the HI-STORM/HI-TRAC stack-up configuration while the lift yoke is disengaged from the HI-TRAC prior to, during, and subsequent to MPC downloading operations, occurring in the plant’s Truck Bay.