U.S. Vitality Info Administration – EIA
From December 18 to January 1, In the present day in Vitality will function a few of our favourite articles from 2023. In the present day’s article was initially revealed on August 1.
A brand new reactor at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear energy plant is now in industrial operation, in keeping with an announcement from Georgia Power, one of many plant’s house owners. It’s the first new nuclear reactor to start out up in the US for the reason that Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar 2 was commissioned in 2016.
The brand new 1,114 megawatt (MW) Unit 3 reactor joins two current reactors at Plant Vogtle, which is collectively owned by Georgia Energy and three different electrical utility firms. The plant’s first two reactors, with a mixed 2,430 MW of nameplate capacity, got here on-line within the late Eighties. Georgia Energy expects one other similar-sized fourth reactor, Vogtle Unit 4, to begin operation someday between November 2023 and March 2024. The 2 new reactors will make Plant Vogtle the most important nuclear energy plant within the nation, surpassing the 4,210 MW Palo Verde plant in Arizona.
Development on the two new reactor websites began in 2009. Initially anticipated to value $14 billion and start industrial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and 2017 (Vogtle 4), the venture bumped into vital development delays and value overruns. The full value of the venture is now estimated at more than $30 billion.
Each Vogtle Models 3 and 4 use a brand new reactor design, the Westinghouse AP1000. This subsequent era superior reactor has a smaller footprint and easier design than earlier era reactor applied sciences. It additionally options sturdy passive safety systems that may shut down the reactor with none operator motion or exterior energy supply. Models 3 and 4 are the primary U.S. deployment of the AP1000 Technology III+ reactor. Two different Westinghouse AP1000 reactors have been deliberate for a nuclear energy plant in South Carolina, however construction was halted in 2017.
The first commercial nuclear power reactor in the US got here on-line in December 1957 in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. Most U.S. nuclear reactors have been built in the 20-year period from 1970 to 1990. Previous to Vogtle Unit 3, the final nuclear reactor to start out in the US was Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee. Development on Watts Bar 2 started in 1973 however was suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor got here on-line in 2016.
With 95,881 MW of nuclear energy capability at 93 working industrial reactors, the US has extra nuclear capability than every other nation. Nuclear energy vegetation produce almost 20% of the nation’s electrical energy.
Though numerous nuclear reactors have retired in recent times, there was interest in nuclear energy as an power useful resource to assist cut back the carbon footprint of the U.S. electrical energy sector. Technology from nuclear reactors doesn’t produce CO2 emissions and might present important baseload energy that will in any other case largely come from coal- and pure gas-fired vegetation.
Current laws, such because the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation and the Inflation Discount Act, helps U.S. nuclear power as a part of a clear power, zero-carbon producing portfolio.
Principal contributors: Elesia Fasching, Tyler Hodge, Slade Johnson