Two projects hailed as milestones in the resurgence of the nuclear power industry underscored a strong year for our Power business unit.
In October, we were chosen to lead the completion of Unit 2 at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, 22 years after work on the original plant was stopped. Earlier in 2007, Browns Ferry Unit 1 in Alabama became the first U.S. nuclear reactor to come into service in more than a decade. Bechtel provided engineering and technical services to restart the reactor, which had been dormant since 1985.
In 2007 we also accomplished the fastest-ever replacement of aging nuclear power components. Working with Texas utility TXU , we replaced four steam generators and a reactor head at the Comanche Peak nuclear power facility near Dallas during an outage that lasted just 55 days—eight days less than the previous record.
In Arizona, we carried out our second steam generator replacement project in four years at the big Palo Verde nuclear plant.
On the fossil-fuel side, we passed a milestone at the big Elm Road expansion project in Wisconsin with the completion of the coal-handling system, and we made good progress on new coal-fired plants in Kentucky and Texas, and on the retrofit of a plant in Ohio. In June, Bechtel won a contract to design and construct the 1,600-megawatt Prairie State coal-fired facility in Illinois, which will be among the cleanest in the world.
In addition, we completed preliminary engineering for three plants designed to use integrated gasification combined cycle technology, which will dramatically reduce emissions.
