Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station
| Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Plant | |
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 Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 & 2 cooling towers and containment buildings. (TVA image) |
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| Country | United States |
| Location | Rhea County, near Spring City, Tennessee |
| Coordinates | 35°36′10″N 84°47′22″W / 35.60278°N 84.78944°WCoordinates: 35°36′10″N 84°47′22″W / 35.60278°N 84.78944°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Construction began | 1973 |
| Commission date | Unit 1: May 27, 1996 |
| Licence expiration | Unit 1: November 9, 2035 |
| Operator(s) | Tennessee Valley Authority |
| Architect(s) | TVA |
| Reactor information | |
| Reactors operational | 1 x 1,121 MW |
| Reactors under construction | 1 x 1,180 MW |
| Reactor type(s) | pressurized water reactor |
| Reactor supplier(s) | Westinghouse |
| Power generation information | |
| Annual generation | 10,050 GW·h |
| Net generation | >110,000 |
| Website www.tva.gov/power/nuclear/wattsbar |
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| As of 2008-11-16 | |
The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant is a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) nuclear reactor used for electric power generation and tritium production for nuclear weapons. It is located on a 1,770-acre (7.2 km²) site in Rhea County, Tennessee, near Spring City, between the cities of Chattanooga and Knoxville. Watts Bar Unit 1 is the most recent civilian reactor to come on-line in the United States. Watts Bar supplies enough electricity for about 750,000 households in the Tennessee Valley.
This plant has one Westinghouse pressurized water reactor, one of two reactor units whose construction commenced in 1973. Unit 1 was completed in 1996, and has a winter net dependable generating capacity of 1,167 megawatts.
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[edit] Unit 2 Construction Project
TVA is currently working to finish the partially completed Unit 2. Unit 2 was about 80% complete when its construction was stopped in 1988. The official reason given for halting construction was a decrease in demand for electricity. Unit 2 remains partly completed (several of its parts being used on other TVA units), but on August 1, 2007 the TVA Board approved completion of the unit. Construction resumed on October 15, 2007, with the reactor expected to begin operation in 2012.[1] The project is expected to cost $2.5 billion, and employ around 2,300 contractor workers. Once finished, it is estimated to produce 1,180 megawatts and create around 250 permanent jobs.[2] This is a landmark project in that Unit 2 will be the first new nuclear reactor to come online in the USA in more than a decade.[3] Once completed, Unit 2 is expected to receive a 40 year operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).[4]
[edit] Tritium production
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission operating license for Watts Bar was modified in September 2002 to allow TVA to irradiate tritium-producing burnable absorber rods at Watts Bar to produce tritium for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Nuclear Security Administration. The Watts Bar license amendment currently permits TVA to install up to 240 tritium-producing rods in Watts Bar Unit 1. Planned future license amendments would allow TVA to irradiate up to approximately 2,000 tritium-producing rods in the Watts Bar reactor.
TVA began irradiating tritium-producing rods at Watts Bar Unit 1 in the fall of 2003. TVA removed these rods from the reactor in the spring of 2005. DOE successfully shipped them to its tritium-extraction facility at Savannah River Site in South Carolina. DOE reimburses TVA for the cost of providing the irradiation services, and also pays TVA a fee for each tritium-producing rod that is irradiated.
[edit] Surrounding population
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.[5]
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Watts Bar was 18,452, an increase of 4.1 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 1,186,648, an increase of 12.8 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Oak Ridge (37 miles to city center).[6]
[edit] Seismic risk
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Watts Bar was 1 in 27,778, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[7][8]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (August 2011) |
- ^ PRIS Home Page
- ^ http://www.tva.gov/power/nuclear/wattsbar.htm
- ^ http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2009/jul/20/tva-moves-toward-2012-startup-of-watts-bar-ii/
- ^ http://epaper.tfponline.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=ChatTFPress/2007/08/02&ID=Ar00103&Locale=
- ^ 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
[edit] External links
Media related to Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station at Wikimedia Commons
- "Watts Bar Nuclear Plant". TVA. http://www.tva.gov/sites/wattsbarnuc.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- Response to CommentsPDF (2.70 MB)
- "Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Tennessee". U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). October 10, 2008. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/wattsbar.html. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- "Watts Bar 1 Pressurized Water Reactor". Operating Nuclear Power Reactors. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). February 14, 2008. http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/wb1.html. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- "Watts Bar Unit 2 Reactivation". NRC. July 31, 2008. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/watts-bar.html. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- "History of Watts Bar Unit 2 Reactivation". NRC. June 9, 2008. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/watts-bar/history.html. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
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