Nuclear power in the United States

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NRC regions and location of nuclear reactors

The Shippingport reactor was the first full-scale PWR nuclear power plant in the United States.

As of 2007 in the United States, there are 104 (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) commercial nuclear generating units licensed to operate, producing a total of 97,400 megawatts (electric), which is approximately 20% of the nation's total electric energy consumption. The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.

[edit] History

The Three Mile Island NPP on Three Mile Island, circa 1979

President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened the Shippingport power plant atomic power station on May 26, 1958 as part of his Atoms for Peace program. Shippingport was the first commercial nuclear power plant built in the United States.

After the growth of nuclear power in the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission anticipated that more than 1,000 reactors would be operating in the United States by 2000. But by the end of the 1970s, it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly so dramatically, and more than 120 reactor orders were ultimately cancelled.^[1]

The Three Mile Island accident has been the most serious accident experienced by the U.S. nuclear industry. Other accidents include those at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, which has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.^[2]

A large number of plants have recently received 20-year extensions to their licensed lifetimes.

Several US nuclear power plants closed well before their design lifetimes, including Rancho Seco in 1989 in California, San Onofre Unit 1 in 1992 in California (units 2 and 3 are still operating), Zion in 1998 in Illinois and Trojan in 1992 in Oregon. Humboldt Bay in California closed in 1976, 13 years after geologists discovered it was built on a fault (the Little Salmon Fault). Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant never operated commercially as an authorized Emergency Evacuation Plan could not be agreed on due to the political climate after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents.

[edit] Resurgence

Feb 2005 opinion poll regarding nuclear power in the USA.
Blue represents people in favor of nuclear power
Gray represents undecided
Yellow represents opposed to nuclear power

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in nuclear power in the US. This has been facilitated in part by the federal government with the Nuclear Power 2010 Program, which coordinates efforts for building new nuclear power plants,^[3] and the Energy Policy Act which makes provisions for nuclear and oil industries.^[4][5]

The most likely and receptive sites for new nuclear plant construction are in the Southeast and Midwest ^[6] which have the largest number of existing plants.

As of 2005, no nuclear plant had been ordered without subsequent cancellation for over twenty years. However, on September 22, 2005 it was announced that two sites had been selected to receive new power reactors (exclusive of the new power reactor scheduled for Idaho National Laboratory) and two other utilities have plans for new reactors.^[7] There has also been an application for an early site permit at Exelon's Clinton Nuclear in Clinton, Illinois to install another reactor as well as a reactor restart at the Tennessee Valley Authority Browns Ferry nuclear station.^[8]

On September 25, 2007, South Texas Project filed the application for a Combined Construction and Operating License (COL). Two new GE-Hitachi ABWRs will be built adjacent to the existing PWRs.^[9] This is the first application for a new nuclear plant in the US for nearly 30 years.^{[citation needed]} This was followed in October, 2007 by TVA and NuStart filing for a COL for two Westinghouse AP1000s to be built at Bellefonte in Hollywood, Alabama.^[10]

In 2007, the Nuclear Energy Institute even started an advertising campaign to increase public support of nuclear power.^[11]

As of April 2008, the NRC is expecting 23 COL applications for a total of 34 new plants.^[12]

However, MidAmerican Energy Company has decided to "end its pursuit of a nuclear power plant in Payette County, Idaho."^[13] MidAmerican cited cost as the primary factor in their decision.

In April 2008 Southern Company signed an engineering and procurement contract with Westinghouse and Shaw Group for two AP1000s to be built at Vogtle in Georgia.^[14] This is the first construction contract for a new nuclear power plant in the US to be signed since 1978.

The prospect of a nuclear renaissance has also revived debate about the nuclear waste issue. It is widely agreed that burying spent nuclear fuel deep underground is the best option for waste disposal, but no such long-term waste repositories yet exist.^[15][16][17]

[edit] Safety

Main article: Nuclear safety in the U.S.

[edit] Regulation

Regulation of nuclear power plants in the United States is done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which divides the nation into 4 administrative divisions.

[edit] Fuel Cycle

[edit] Uranium Mining

Main article: Uranium mining in the United States

The United States has the 4th greatest uranium reserves in the world. Domestic production increased until 1980, after which it declined sharply due to low uranium prices. In 2001 the United States mined only 5% of the uranium consumed by its nuclear power plants. The remainder was imported, principally from Canada and Australia.^[18] After 2001, however, Uranium prices steadily increased, which prompted increased production and revived mines.

[edit] Uranium enrichment

The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) performs all enrichment activities for U.S. commercial nuclear plants, using 11.3 million SWUs per year at its Paducah, Kentucky site. The USEC plant still uses gaseous diffusion enrichment, which has now been proved to be inferior to centrifuge enrichment. However, the capital cost of such a plant is so high that the plant will go through a few more years of operation before being replaced by a modern centrifuge plant.

Currently, demonstration activities are underway at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a future centrifugal enrichment plant. The new plant will be called the American Centrifuge Plant, which has an estimate cost of 2.3 billion USD.^[19]

[edit] Reprocessing

US policy that forbid reprocessing in the country was drafted under the Carter administration. The official statement was "We will defer indefinitely the commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium produced in the U.S. nuclear power programs."^[20] However, since the GNEP was proposed, several reprocessing proposals have also surfaced.

[edit] Disposal

See also: Yucca Mountain

In the United States, all power produced by nuclear energy pays a tax of 0.1 cents per kWh sold, in exchange for which the United States government takes responsibility for the high level nuclear waste. This tax has been collected since the beginning of the industry, but action by the government towards creation of a national geological repository was not taken until the 1990s and 2000s since all spent fuel is immediately stored in the spent fuel pools on site.

Recently, as plants continue to age, many of these pools have come near capacity, prompting creation of dry cask storage facilities as well. Several lawsuits between utilities and the government have also transpired over the cost of these facilities, because by law the government is required to foot the bill for actions that go beyond the spent fuel pool.

Yucca became the front runner for the selection of a site for a national repository and then was decided to be the site by the government. Funding has been increasing in recent years and research is ongoing, but a date for receiving spent fuel is still a number of years off and the plan remains a political battleground.

[edit] Nuclear Organizations

[edit] Fuel Vendors

The following companies are those which have active Nuclear fuel fabrication facilities in the United States.^[21] These are all light water fuel fabrication facilities because only LWRs are operating in the US. The US currently has no MOX fuel fabrication facilities, though Duke Energy has expressed intent of building one of a relatively small capacity.^[22]

• Areva

Areva (formerly Areva NP) runs fabrication facilities in Lynchburg, Virginia and Richland, Washington. It also has a Generation III+ plant design, the Evolutionary Power Reactor, which it plans to market in the US.^[23]

• Westinghouse Electric Company

Westinghouse operates a fuel fabrication facility in Columbia, South Carolina^[24], which processes 1,600 metric tons Uranium (MTU) per year. It previously operated a nuclear fuel plant in Hematite, Missouri but has since closed it down.

• General Electric

GE pioneered the BWR technology that has become widely used throughout the world. It formed the Global Nuclear Fuel joint venture in 1999 with Hitachi and Toshiba and later restructured into GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy. It operates the fuel fabrication facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, with a capacity of 1,200 MTU per year.

[edit] Industry and Academic

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) scientific and educational organization that has academic and industry members. The organization publishes a large amount of literature on nuclear technology in several journals. The ANS also has some offshoot organizations such as North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN).

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is an industry group whose activities include lobbying, experience sharing between companies and plants, and provides data on the industry to a number of outfits.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Energy Portal

• Atoms for Peace
• List of nuclear reactors
• Nuclear Power 2010 Program
• Nuclear power
• Nuclear energy policy
• Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
• Energy policy of the United States

Bilateral nuclear power agreements

• United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan
• United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act

[edit] External links

• World-nuclear.org
• U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Statistical Information
• Uranium information center: Nuclear energy in the world
• The Nuclear Energy Institute: The policy organization of the nuclear energy and technologies industry

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