I worked at the Braidwood and LaSalle Nuclear Stations as a construction engineer and did inspections of the company’s equipment at Dresden and Quad Cities. Braidwood was supposed to be a twin of Byron but the Braidwood Superintendent for Commonwealth Edison decided to put in piping systems in a different order than Byron did. If we encountered a pipe that Byron had installed in one route we might have to change its route to avid one we had already installed. Designing while building increases time and cost.

            Byron, Braidwood, and LaSalle are 1,000 plus megawatt nuclear generating stations. Each has two reactors with two turbines to generate electricity from the steam produced in the reactors by fission. Byron and Braidwood are pressured water which does not go through the rod bundles and thus does not have a chance of becoming contaminated. LaSalle is a boiling water system which the water goes through the reactor producing steam.

            Both types take a couple of decades to build from the start to producing power. Theoretically a cookie cutter design and construction could shave a few years off the time. Pre-fabrication of some systems and hangers might shave a few more months off but I can’t see the time being cut to less than 15 years.

            The next generation reactors China is producing takes a lot less time and they are supposed to be building at least twenty now. We are looking at building smaller 300 megawatt reactors and micro ones producing 50 megawatts. Both could be mostly pre-fabbed in a shop and shipped to the site. My concern is one of safety. Existing stations are full of security people and equipment. Will the smaller ones be as safe or an easy terrorist target?