Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, a nuclear power plant, is located 50 miles southeast of Harrisburg in Peach Bottom Township, York County, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River.

The Philadelphia Electric Company (later shortened first to PECO Energy and later to just PECO) became one of the pioneers in the commercial nuclear industry when it ordered Peach Bottom 1 in 1958. The U.S.'s first nuclear power plant (the Shippingport Reactor) had gone on line a year earlier. Peach Bottom Unit 1 was an experimental helium-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor. It operated from 1966 to 1974. The other two units, General Electric boiling water reactors, placed on-line in 1973 and 1974, are still in operation on the 620 acre (2.5 km²) site. Both Units 2 and 3 are rated at 3514 Megawatts thermal, equivalent to about 1180 Megawatts of electricity each. Their licenses run until 2033 (Unit 2) and 2034 (Unit 3).

Peach Bottom is operated by the Exelon Corporation and is jointly owned by Exelon (50%) and PSEG Power LLC (50%).

Peach Bottom was one of the plants analyzed in the NUREG-1150 safety analysis study.

afety concerns

In September 2007, former employee Kerry Beal videotaped Peach Bottom security guards sleeping on the job. Beal had previously tried to notify supervisors at Wackenhut Corp. and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010304442.html?sub=AR]

References

* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010304442.html?sub=AR Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear Industry]

ee also

* Exelon Corporation
* Nuclear safety in the U.S.
* Wackenhut

External links

* [http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/peach_bottom.html DoE Page]