Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant

Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant
The nuclear power plant in 1998
location
Coordinates	39 ° 48 ′ 51 ″  N , 74 ° 12 ′ 18 ″  W Coordinates: 39 ° 48 ′ 51 ″  N , 74 ° 12 ′ 18 ″  W
Country:	United States
Data
Owner:	Exelon
Operator:	Exelon
Project start:	1963
Commercial operation:	1st December 1969
Shutdown:	17th September 2018
Decommissioned reactors (gross):	1 (652 MW)
Energy fed in in 2007:	5077 GWh
Energy fed in since commissioning:	192,660 GWh
Was standing:	September 2018
The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .

The decommissioned Oyster Creek nuclear power plant near Lacey Township in the state of New Jersey was the first large nuclear power plant in the USA. It was last operated by AmerGen Energy LLC, a subsidiary of the Exelon Group.

The reactor got its cooling water from Barnegat Bay, a lagoon in the Atlantic Ocean .

history

The nuclear power plant consisted of a boiling water reactor of General Electric with a net capacity of 619 MW (gross 652 MW). Construction began on December 15, 1964. The first network synchronization took place on September 23, 1969, and on December 1, 1969 the reactor went into commercial operation.

running time

The license granted in 1991 was limited to April 2009. In 2005, Exelon applied for an extension of the term until 2029. Citizens' initiatives opposed this application with objections and petitions.

At the beginning of April 2009, the operating license was extended to 2029. In December 2010, the operator signed an agreement with the state of New Jersey . This waived the requirement to build expensive cooling towers. These were requested in order to reduce the number of dead organisms that die every summer as a result of the warm cooling water. In return, Exelon promised to close the NPP in 2019.

The reactor is technically comparable to the Fukushima Daiichi 1 reactor block , which was the first to explode during the Fukushima nuclear disaster . In March 2011, an American federal court therefore ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to review the power plant's operating license. On April 5, 2011, it became known that the NRC sees no need for any new action for the power plant.

Due to the fracking boom in the United States since around 2010, nuclear power plants are becoming increasingly unprofitable. In August 2015, the system was unable to qualify for a tender to feed its electricity into the power grid beyond 2018. The same fate befell Exelon's Quad Cities in Illinois and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania power plants . Operation was thus secured until the end of May 2018.

On February 2, 2018, Exelon announced that it would bring the shutdown of the plant forward by more than a year to October of the same year. The company justified its decision by saying that it will benefit financially from the shutdown at a time "when fuel and maintenance costs are rising, while electricity prices are at an all-time low". The decision on early shutdown came just a few days after the government of the state of New Jersey decided to subsidize the nuclear power plants in their area with public funds from a fund to promote CO ₂ -free energies. The shutdown was finally brought forward one more time, to September 17, 2018 and thus the end of the plant's fuel cycle.

Accidents

On April 9, 2009 radioactively contaminated water (mainly with tritium ) leaked from the nuclear power plant. At the beginning of May 2010 it became known that the contaminated water had reached a groundwater layer on which a large part of the drinking water supply in the region depends.

An incident occurred on July 12, 2009 . An emergency power failure occurred due to a lightning strike in an external power distribution system . The internal diesel emergency generators started up . However, one of them had start-up problems. For this reason, a so-called emergency capacitor had to be put into operation temporarily as an almost final redundancy . The emergency power failure lasted 1.5 hours and an internal emergency situation was declared. The NRC nuclear regulatory agency then carried out a special investigation.

On October 29, 2012 at 7:00 p.m., an “unusual event” was proclaimed due to Hurricane Sandy and the associated flooding. Two hours later, the event level was increased to "Alert". This is the second stage in the four-stage alarm system.

Operating license

In the USA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) grants an operating license for a nuclear power plant for a period of up to 40 years. The 40 year period was originally based on the fixed asset depreciation period . The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 allows the operating license to be extended (even several times) by 20 years at a time.

An operating license was granted to the operator Exelon Generation Co., LLC on July 2, 1991 by the NRC. It was renewed on June 3, 2009. The operating license is valid until April 9, 2029.

Data of the reactor block

The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant has one power plant block :

Reactor block	Reactor type	net power	gross power	start of building	Network synchronization	Commercialization of essential operation	operating permit	Shutdown
Oyster Creek	Boiling water reactor	619 MW	652 MW	December 15, 1964	09/23/1969	December 01, 1969	04/09/2029	09/17/2018

See also

• List of nuclear power plants

Web links

Commons : Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• April 5, 2011: A federal court ordered the review of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant's operating license
• Oyster Creek Generating Station on the website of the operator Exelon (English)
• Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)website
• the daily newspaper : Extension of the lifetime of ancient nuclear power plants "Biggest scrap heap far and wide", September 11, 2009
• Tritium leak at Akw Oyster Creek threatens drinking water supply

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Exelon | Oyster Creek Generating Station (English)
2. ↑ INSC: Database ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
3. ↑ https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=606
4. ↑ License Renewal Application Oyster Creek Generating Station , page 1.7 Description of the plant.
5. ↑ Oyster Creek Generating Station - License Renewal ( Memento from May 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ www.world-nuclear-news.org
8. ^ Matthew L. Wald: Oyster Creek Reactor to Close by 2019. New York Times, December 8, 2010
9. ↑ [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ NRC: Japan is no reason to de-license Oyster Creek ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ^ [2] Lancaster Online, September 16, 2015
12. ↑ http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/oyster-creek-nuclear-plant-to-close-a-year-early/article_8f48401e-f1ed-5c85-916b-83de115cb146.html
13. ↑ http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2018/06/nuclear_plant_closing_in_september_but_buildings_w.html
14. ↑ USA: groundwater radioactively contaminated. Retrieved May 9, 2010 . 
15. ↑ Tainted nuke plant water reaches major NJ aquifer. Retrieved May 10, 2010 . 
16. ^ NRC begins special inspection at Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant. Retrieved May 9, 2010 . 
17. ↑ The oldest US nuclear power plant issues a flood alarm. Retrieved October 30, 2012 . 
18. ↑ Superstorm Sandy puts NJ's Oyster Creek nuclear power plant on alert; NY's Indian Point plans to shut down. Retrieved October 30, 2012 . 
19. ↑ "Sandy" lets the level rise: Alarm in the oldest nuclear power plant in the USA. Retrieved October 30, 2012 . 
20. ↑ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ (English)
21. ^ Backgrounder on Reactor License Renewal. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), accessed August 18, 2016 . 
22. ^ Subsequent License Renewal Background. NRC, accessed August 18, 2016 . 
23. ^ Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station. NRC, accessed August 18, 2016 . 
24. ↑ Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "United States of America: Nuclear Power Reactors" (English)