Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station

Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station

Hope Creek NPP, image courtesy of the NRC
Location of Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Salem County, New Jersey
Country United States
Location Lower Alloways Creek
Coordinates 39°28′04″N 75°32′17″W / 39.46778°N 75.53806°W / 39.46778; -75.53806Coordinates: 39°28′04″N 75°32′17″W / 39.46778°N 75.53806°W / 39.46778; -75.53806
Status Operational
Construction began 1974–1986
Commission date December 20, 1986
Operator(s) PSEG
Nuclear power station
Reactor type GE-4
Reactor supplier General Electric
Cooling source Delaware River
Cooling towers 1
Power generation
Units operational 1 x 1059 MW
Make and model 1 GE 25kV
Nameplate capacity 1059 MW
Average generation 8,104 GWh
Website
Hope Creek

Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station is a thermal nuclear power plant located in Lower Alloways Creek Township, in Salem County, New Jersey, United States, on the same site as the two-unit Salem Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is owned and operated by PSEG Nuclear LLC. It has one unit (one reactor), a boiling water reactor (BWR) manufactured by GE.[1] The complex was designed for two units, but the second unit was cancelled in 1981. It has a generating capacity of 1,268 MWe. The plant came online on July 25, 1986, licensed to operate until 2026. In 2009, PSEG applied for a 20-year license renewal,[2] which it received in 2011.[3] With its combined output of 3,572 megawatts, the Salem-Hope Creek complex is the largest nuclear generating facility in the Eastern United States and the second largest nationwide.

Hope Creek is one of four licensed nuclear power reactors in New Jersey. The others are the two units at the adjacent Salem plant, and the one unit at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station.[4] As of January 1, 2005, New Jersey ranked 10th among the 31 states with nuclear capacity for total MWe generated. In 2003, nuclear electricity generated over one half of the electricity in the state.[5]

Plant Features

Hope Creek is a boiling water reactor (BWR) unlike its neighbors at the nearby Salem Nuclear Plant which are pressurized water reactors (PWR.)

Hope Creek's reactor is used to produce cobalt-60 by replacing a few fuel pins with cobalt-59-enriched steel.

The plant's huge natural-draft cooling tower can be seen from many miles away including from the Delaware Memorial Bridge, as well as from the observation deck on the 57th floor of One Liberty Place in Philadelphia on clear days. This cooling tower serves only Hope Creek's single reactor. The neighboring Salem units utilize once-through cooling with no cooling tower.

A unique feature of Hope Creek is its cylindrical reactor building complete with a dome which makes it appear similar to a pressurized water reactor containment building which is not typical of boiling water reactors. However this similarity is limited to appearance. Like other BWRs, the actual containment vessel for the reactor is a separate drywell/torus structure enclosed within the reactor building, but structurally separate. The outer reactor building serves as secondary containment and houses many of the reactor's safety systems.

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.[6]

The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Hope Creek was 53,811, an increase of 53.3 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 5,523,010, an increase of 7.5 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Philadelphia (43 miles to city center).[7]

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 Hope Creek was 1 in 357,143, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[8][9]

References

  1. ↑ The Hope Creek Generating Station, PSE&G. Accessed September 15, 2007.
  2. ↑ "PSEG seeks licence renewals for two plants". World Nuclear News. 19 August 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  3. ↑ Caroom, Eliot (July 20, 2011). "Hope Creek's license extended by NRC - with conditions". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
  4. ↑ "NRC - Licensed Facilities by Region or State - New Jersey". US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
  5. ↑ "New Jersey Nuclear Industry". United States Department of Energy. Archived from the original on May 29, 2010. Retrieved 2008-08-23. The leading source of electricity in 2004 in the state was nuclear power. In 2004, national nuclear generation reached record levels. In New Jersey, the nuclear industry's share of electric output dropped by 4 percent as coal and gas modestly increased their share.
  6. ↑ http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/emerg-plan-prep-nuc-power-bg.html
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Sections/NEWS/quake%20nrc%20risk%20estimates.pdf

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