NuCrane ships first Chinese order
24 August 2011 by Will NorthNuCrane, a specialist manufacturer of nuclear reactor cranes owned by Westinghouse, has shipped its first polar crane to China, for use in one of four AP1000 reactors being built in the country.
OCH’s Nicole Robinson visited NuCrane’s plant in Minnesota (see OCH July/August, pp31-32). At the time, workers at the NuCrane site were completing the final wiring of the crane. Now, eleven flat bed trucks and 15 shipping containers will transport the 300-ton capacity crane from Hutchinson to New Orleans, La., where it will be loaded onto commercial ships for transit to China. Expected arrival at the construction site is late October.
The polar crane will be used for the Sanmen 1 plant in Zhejiang province, China. It is the first of Westinghouse’s new AP1000 reactors to be built. Sanmen 1 and 2 are scheduled to start generating power in 2013 and 2014, respectively, and two more plants, Haiyang 1 and 2, are expected to follow in 2014 and 2015.
