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Legacy Facility Master Planning
Published in Terry Jacobs, Andrew A. Signore, Good Design Practices for GMP Pharmaceutical Facilities, 2016
The first and most obvious reason to maintain an existing, aging facility is the capital investment already in the physical plant. Over the years, a significant amount of money and time have gone into establishing and maintaining a site. Expenditures in the physical plant include the structure, foundation, and building enclosure; utility feeds both to the site and into the building; and to the extent they can be reused, the internal utilities and services. In addition, there are usually numerous support functions already in place, such as warehouse, office, cafeteria, and quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) laboratories that can continue to be leveraged. To replace such a facility means the previous investment disappears in its entirety.
Assessment of Factory Fabrication Considerations for Nuclear Microreactors
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2023
Abdalla Abou-Jaoude, Yasir Arafat, Chandrakanth Bolisetti, Botros Hanna, Joshua Belvedere, James Blocker, Brandon Cooper, Shanda Harmon, Dan McCarthy
A plethora of academic research papers have already been published on the topic of nuclear reactor factory fabrication, mainly focusing on small modular reactors (SMRs) rather than microreactors. Maronati[5] and Mignacca and Locatelli[6] provide comprehensive literature reviews of the economics of SMRs with a focus on modularity. With the significant cost and schedule overruns in recent nuclear power plant construction, the smaller size of SMRs (both in terms of power rating and physical plant size) and their modularity are intended to enable more activities to be performed at a factory and not onsite. Moving activities off site has been known to bring several benefits, including lower labor costs, improved productivity, and construction efficiency, as well as what is much needed in nuclear construction: reduced risk of cost and schedule overruns. This approach is commonly referred to in the nonnuclear construction management industry as prefabrication, preassembly, modularization, and off-site fabrication and its benefits are well documented in the nonnuclear industry (e.g., Refs.[7–9]) as well as the nuclear industry (e.g., Refs.[5,10–12]).
SWM and urban water: Smart management for an absurd system?
Published in Water International, 2020
Despite its inherent inefficiencies and environmental effects, the prevailing practice for urban water services is to extend centralized urban infrastructure to ever-expanding new subdivisions, because viable alternatives have not been sufficiently developed and the investments in physical plant and staff capacities favour the existing practices. The longevity and magnitude of investments in water infrastructure are such that changing directions requires a vision that extends beyond the life cycle of the current built infrastructure – well over 50 years. Even at the end of their life cycle, pipes and pumps tend to be replaced in the same configuration as the original, so the influence of new infrastructure installed today will extend many decades into the future. This time frame is politically and practically extremely challenging, in part because of election cycles that prompt political leaders to focus on time horizons of three to ten years. Political will, sustained investment, and public support are also needed to effectively manage pressures from the land development community for site plan approvals and to work within the limitations of municipal funding potentials. The reliability of the urban water infrastructure and the fact that it is largely underground, out of public sight, works against building public support and awareness of the need to shift towards more harmony with nature.