- Vogtle Electric Generating Plant
Infobox Nuclear power plant
name = Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant
caption = Vogtle cooling towers
country =United States
location = Burke County, Georgia
coords = coord|33.143005|-81.765747 |format=dms |region:US-GA_type:landmark |display=title,inline
owner =
operator =
built =
start =
end =
r_supplier = Westinghouse
r_type = ,AP1000 (planned)
r_active = 2
r_active_mw = 2,430
r_shutdown =
r_shutdown_mw =
r_construction =
r_construction_mw =
r_canceled =
r_canceled_mw =
r_planned = 2
r_planned_mw = 2,234
capacity =
generation =
for_year =
av_annual_gen =
net_gen =
status = O
generators =
architect =
cost =
constructors =
expires =
nrc_region = Region II
website =
as_of =The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant is a 2-unit
nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Augusta and Waynesboro, Georgia.Each unit has a Westinghouse
pressurized water reactor (PWR), with aGeneral Electric turbine and electric generator. Units 1 and 2 were completed in1987 and1989 , respectively. Each of Vogtle's units is capable of producing approximately 1,200 MW of electricity when online, for a combined capacity of 2,400 MW. Southern Nuclear lists the capacity as 1,215 MW each, for a combined output of 2,430 MW.cite web
title=Plant Vogtle - Southern Company
publisher=Southern Company
url=http://www.southernco.com/southernnuclear/vogtle.asp
accessdate= 2007-03-02 ] The twin cooling towers are 548 ft (167 m) tall.During Vogtle's construction, costs skyrocketed from an estimated $660 million to $8.87 billion.cite news
last=Gertner
first=Jon
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/magazine/16nuclear.html
publisher= "The New York Times "
title= Atomic Balm?
date=July 16, 2006] cite web
last = Moens
first = John
title = U.S. Nuclear Plants - Vogtle
publisher =Energy Information Administration ,U.S. Department of Energy
date = Fri Mar 18 09:15:09 EDT 2005
url = http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/vogtle.html
accessdate = 2007-03-02 ] This was typical of the time due to increased regulations after theThree Mile Island accident.Ownership
The plant is jointly owned by
Georgia Power (45.7%),Oglethorpe Power Corporation (30%),Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7%) and the City of Dalton (1.6%). TheSouthern Nuclear Operating Company operates the plant.ite area emergency
On
March 20 ,1990 at 9:20 a.m. a truck carrying fuel and lubricants in the plant's low voltage switchyard backed into a support column for the feeder line supplying power to the Unit 1-A reserve auxiliary transformer (RAT). This set off a complicated chain of events that was exacerbated both by planned maintenance (in which some back-up systems were off-line) and by equipment failures in some back-up systems. The resulting loss of electrical power in the plant's "vital circuits" shut down the residual heat removal (RHR) pump that was cooling Unit 1 (which was nearing the end of a refueling outage) and prevented the back-up RHR from activating. Even though Unit 1 was not operating at full-power, residual heat from the natural decay of the radioactive fuel needed to be removed to prevent a dangerous rise in core temperature. At 9:40 a.m. the plant operators declared a site area emergency (SAE) per existing procedures which called for an SAE whenever "vital" power is lost for more than 15 minutes. At 9:56 a.m., plant operators performed a manual start of the A-train emergency diesel generator (EDG), which bypassed most of the EDG's protective trips that had prevented it from coming on-line. RHR-A was then started using power from EDG-A. With core cooling restored the SAE was downgraded to an alert at 10:15 a.m. The temperature of the Unit 1 core coolant increased from 90 °F to 136 °F during the 36 minutes required to re-energize the A-side bus. Ironically, throughout the event, non-vital power was continuously available to Unit 1 from off-site sources. However, the Vogtle electrical system was not designed to permit easy interconnection of the Unit 1 vital buses to non-vital power or to the Unit 2 electrical buses.(ref [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1990/in90025.html NRC Information Notice No. 90-25] ) Since this incident, Plant Vogtle has implemented changes to the plant that allow power to be transferred from one side to the other from an off-site source.Units 3 and 4
On
August 15 ,2006 , Southern Nuclear formally applied for an Early Site Permit (ESP) for two additional units. The ESP will determine whether the site is appropriate for additional reactors, and this process is separate from theCombined Construction and Operating License (COL) Application process.cite web
title=NRC: Early Site Permits - Licensing Reviews
publisher=United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission
url=http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/esp.html
accessdate= 2007-05-31 ] OnMarch 31 ,2008 , Southern Nuclear announced that it had submitted an application for a COL, a process which will take at least 3 to 4 years.cite web
title="Southern utilities apply for new nuclear licenses"
publisher=Reuters
url=http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN3143208820080331
accessdate= 2008-04-02 ] OnApril 9 ,2008 , Georgia Power Company reached a contract agreement for twoAP1000 reactors designed by Westinghouse (owned byToshiba ) and the Shaw Group (Baton Rouge, LA).cite web
title= "Westinghouse wins first US nuclear deal in 30 years"
publisher=Guardian News and Media Limited
url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/10/nuclear.nuclearpower
accessdate= 2008-04-09 ] The contract represents the first agreement for new nuclear development since theThree Mile Island accident in 1979, and still needs approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC).cite web
title="Georgia Power to Expand Nuclear Plant"
publisher=Associated Press
url=http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/04/09/ap4870687.html
accessdate= 2008-04-09 ] As stated by a Georgia Power spokesperson Carol Boatright: "If the PSC approves, we are going forward with the new units."References
External links
* [http://www.southerncompany.com/southernnuclear/vogtle.asp?mnuOpco=soco&mnuType=sub&mnuItem=sn Plant Vogtle Southern Nuclear Homepage]
* [http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/vogtle.html DoE Page]
* [http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/vog1.html NRC Page for Vogtle 1]
* [http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/vog2.html NRC Page for Vogtle 2]
* [http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/col/vogtle.html NRC; Vogtle Nuclear Site, Units 3 & 4 Application]
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