Clinton Nuclear Generating Station
| Clinton Power Station | |
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 Clinton Power Station |
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| Country | United States |
| Location | Harp Township, DeWitt County, near Clinton, Illinois |
| Coordinates | 40°10′20″N 88°50′6″W / 40.17222°N 88.83500°WCoordinates: 40°10′20″N 88°50′6″W / 40.17222°N 88.83500°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Commission date | April 24, 1987 |
| Licence expiration | September 29, 2026 |
| Construction cost | >$2.6 billion |
| Operator(s) | Exelon Corporation |
| Architect(s) | Sargent & Lundy |
| Reactor information | |
| Reactors operational | 1 x 1043 MW |
| Reactors planned | 1 at least 1,100 MW |
| Reactor type(s) | boiling water reactor |
| Reactor supplier(s) | General Electric |
| Power generation information | |
| Annual generation | 9,250 GW·h |
| Website www.exeloncorp.com/.../Clinton_Power_Station | |
| As of 2008-11-19 | |
The Clinton Power Station is located near Clinton, Illinois, USA. The power station began service on April 24, 1987 and is currently capable of generating 1,043 MW. Due to inflation and cost overruns, Clinton's final construction cost exceeded $2.6 billion.[citation needed]
The station has a single General Electric generation II boiling water reactor. The reactor design is a BWR-6 with a Mark III containment structure. The present reactor operating license was issued April 17, 1987, and will expire September 29, 2026.
The surrounding 14,300 acres (58 km2) site and adjacent 5,000 acres (20 km2) cooling reservoir, Clinton Lake, is owned by the operator, but hosts the Clinton Lake State Recreation Area and is open to public for a large range of outdoor activities. Only around 150 acres (0.61 km2) are actually used by the plant's buildings and operation areas.[1][2]
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Transfer of ownership to Exelon[edit]
After less than a decade of operation the plant's original owner, Illinois Power, had to close it in 1996 following some technical problems.[3] Having deduced that it was not economical to own and operate only one nuclear generating station in the newly deregulated market, they kept it shut down during around 3 years whilst looking for an interested buyer.[4] Exelon Corporation bought it for a more modest price of $40 million dollars, with the purchase including the fuel in the reactor vessel and responsibility of all the radioactive waste in the spent fuel storage pool. The Operator and Owner is the Exelon Corporation.
Soon after acquiring the power plant, Exelon made in 2001 a request to uprate its power by 20%, from 2894 MWt to 3473 MWt,[5] resulting in an increase of 193 MWe, the largest approved by the NRC until 2012.[6]
Extension plans[edit]
In September 2003, Exelon submitted an Early Site Permit to place a second reactor at the Clinton site — this was approved March 15, 2007.[7] The Early Site Permit does not actually grant any type of license to begin building a second reactor, although it offers the operator an avenue to begin the approval process leading to construction and operation of an additional power reactor at the site. According to the ESP, the new plant design will be of the AP1000 type, although the ESP does not state what gross wattage has been selected.
Production of medical radio-isotopes[edit]
In January 2010, GE-Hitachi announced that the station will begin producing cobalt-60. The technology is soon to be installed at the Clinton boiling water reactor during Clinton's planned maintenance and refueling outage in order to produce cobalt-60. The radioactive isotope is used for a variety of medical and industrial purposes including cancer therapy, sterilization of medical equipment, food irradiation and materials testing.
It is produced by inserting a 'target' rod rich in non-radioactive cobalt-59 into a reactor core where free neutrons will be captured, turning cobalt-59 into cobalt-60. After retrieval from the core, processing can extract the cobalt-60 for manufacture into a useful radiation source. The vast majority of the world's cobalt-60 supply - over 80% - has traditionally come from Canada's National Research Universal (NRU) reactor at Chalk River. In general, the supply situation for medical and industrial isotopes is shaky thanks to a reliance on this kind of aging research reactor. Clinton will be the only light water reactor currently producing cobalt-60.
Exelon Nuclear president Charles Pardee said: "We view this as an opportunity for Exelon to support an important medical technology that saves people's lives." [8]
It was announced in September 2011 that GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Exelon commissioned a feasibility study into creating Molybdenum-99(Mo-99) at the reactor. Mo-99 decays to produce technetium-99m (Tc-99m) that is used in around 50 million medical diagnostic imaging procedures every year. With a half-life of only six hours, Tc-99m is too short-lived to be transported to hospitals so is produced where it is needed in generators containing Mo-99. As Mo-99 itself has a half-life of only 66 hours, the world needs reliable, steady supplies of the isotope, most of which is made by irradiating uranium-235 targets inside a research reactor.
Most of the world's Mo-99 comes from only five research reactors: Canada's NRU, the Netherlands' HFR, Belgium's BR-2, France's Osiris and South Africa's Safari-1. Issues at some of the reactors in recent years have led to worldwide problems with the supply of this vital isotope.[9]
Surrounding population[edit]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[10]
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Clinton was 14,677, a decrease of 0.4 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 813,658, an increase of 5.7 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Champaign (30 miles to city center).[11]
Seismic risk[edit]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Clinton was 1 in 400,000, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[12][13]
In popular culture[edit]
Inspired by the nearby power station, Clinton radio station WHOW changed its motto to "WHOW, your radio active station" in April 1989.[14]
References[edit]
- ^ Clinton Lake State Recreation Area Site Map
- ^ Clinton, Unit 1 - CPS/USAR - Rev. 12, January 2007, p18, chapter 1.2.2.1.1
- ^ Crain's chicago business : For the record : September 07, 1998
- ^ Crain's chicago business : For the record : February 15, 1999
- ^ Clinton, Unit 1, Amendment No. 149, Power Uprate (Amendment Package)
- ^ EIA : Uprates can increase U.S. nuclear capacity substantially without building new reactors
- ^ "Issued Early Site Permit - Clinton Site". Early Site Permits. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). August 28, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ^ http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=27001
- ^ http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Clinton_moving_into_molybdenum_production-1409118.html
- ^ http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/emerg-plan-prep-nuc-power-bg.html
- ^ Bill Dedman, Nuclear neighbors: Population rises near US reactors, msnbc.com, April 14, 2011 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42555888/ns/us_news-life/ Accessed May 1, 2011.
- ^ Bill Dedman, What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk, msnbc.com, March 17, 2011 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42103936/ Accessed April 19, 2011.
- ^ http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Sections/NEWS/quake%20nrc%20risk%20estimates.pdf
- ^ "Ex-mayor's encore rebuffs Warhol". Bloomington Pantagraph. April 17, 1989. "In Clinton, though, WHOW radio may have outdone them all. The station's new slogan is influenced by Illinois Power Co.'s nuclear plant just eight miles away. "WHOW," goes the motto. "Your radio active station.""
External links[edit]
Media related to Clinton Nuclear Generating Station at Wikimedia Commons
- "Clinton Nuclear Power Plant, Illinois". Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). August 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- "Clinton Boiling Water Reactor". Operating Nuclear Power Reactors. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). February 14, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- "IAEA PRIS database CLINTON-1". IAEA. November 17, 2012. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
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