How an Illinois power plant refueled during the pandemic

For the Braidwood Generating Station in Illinois, just outside of Chicago, plans to refuel the nuclear-power plant could not be put on hold just because of a global pandemic.

Planning for the refueling began two-years ago, but had to be quickly modified over the past few weeks to accommodate the age of coronavirus, according to The Wall Street Journal. On site there are two reactors, each of which is taken offline every 18-months for a refueling.

The Braidwood reactors power 2.5 million homes and businesses, without the essential workers running the plant, people would be confined to their homes during the pandemic without light.

The problem, was that the refueling exercise usually requires the plant to add a few thousand people to its work force, who will, in turn, complete tasks in tight spaces with groups of 10 packed in them. With some strategic planning, these practices were modified this time around.

By postponing any jobs that could wait to take place during the next refueling, the plant was able to reduce the number of employees required for the refueling by about 300 people, and ensures that small compartments, which would usually host teams of 10, were only visited in teams of four.

Braidwood has also heightened their sanitizing regime — bottles of hand sanitizer lie next to every handprint reader, each of which is cleaned after every individual use. Plexiglass walls separate workers entering the plant, where screeners at the gate are in place to take the temperature of every worker and ask questions about possible exposure to the virus in the past two weeks.

One worker told the Wall Street Journal that, while he typically contracts some type of upper respiratory infection during refueling jobs, because of Braidwood’s precautions he feels like he is less likely to become ill during this year’s procedure.