Perry Nuclear Generating Station

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Perry Nuclear Power Plant
Perry Nuclear Plant (2), July 2020.jpg
The plant as seen from Parmly Road
Map
CountryUnited States
LocationNorth Perry, Lake County, Ohio
Coordinates41°48′3″N 81°8′36″W / 41.80083°N 81.14333°W / 41.80083; -81.14333Coordinates: 41°48′3″N 81°8′36″W / 41.80083°N 81.14333°W / 41.80083; -81.14333
StatusOperational
Construction beganOctober 1, 1974 (1974-10-01)[1][2]
Commission dateNovember 18, 1987[1]
Construction cost$6.024 billion (2007 USD)[3] ($7.39 billion in 2020 dollars[4])
Owner(s)Energy Harbor (Formerly FirstEnergy)
Operator(s)Energy Harbor (Formerly FirstEnergy)
Nuclear power station
Reactor typeBWR
Reactor supplierGeneral Electric
Cooling towers2 × Natural Draft
(one in use)
Cooling sourceLake Erie
Thermal capacity1 × 3758 MWth
Power generation
Nameplate capacity1256 MW
Capacity factor89.18% (2017)
80.80% (lifetime)
Annual net output10718 GWh (2018)
External links
WebsitePerry
[edit on Wikidata]

700+ employees[1]
Perry as seen from Headlands Park, Ohio

The Perry Nuclear Power Plant is located on a 1,100 acres (450 ha) site on Lake Erie, 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Cleveland in North Perry, Ohio, US. The nuclear power plant is owned and operated by Energy Harbor (Formerly FirstEnergy Solutions).

The reactor is a General Electric BWR-6 boiling water reactor design, with a Mark III containment design. The original core power level of 3,579 megawatts thermal was increased to 3,758 megawatts thermal in 2000, making Perry one of the largest BWRs in the United States.

Perry was expected to close in 2021 as it is no longer profitable to run when competing against natural gas plants.[5] To avert this, Ohio House Bill 6 was signed into law in July 2019 which added a fee to residents' utility bills that funded subsidies of $150 million per year to Perry and the Davis–Besse nuclear plant to keep both plants operational.[6][7] However, the bill was alleged to be part of the Ohio nuclear bribery scandal revealed by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in July 2020.[8][7]

History

Perry was originally designed as a two-unit installation, but construction on Unit 2 was suspended in 1985 and formally cancelled in 1994. At the time of cancellation, all of the major buildings and structures for the second unit were completed, including the 500-foot-tall (150 m) cooling tower. It is possible that a second unit could be constructed on the site, but current economic and regulatory conditions are not conducive to doing so (in addition to back taxes that would be due to the "abandon in place" designations on many objects in Unit 2).

Eleven hundred acres at the Perry plant were designated in 1993 as an urban wildlife sanctuary by the National Institute for Urban Wildlife. The area has trees, shrubs, streams and ponds; and a habitat for heron, belted kingfisher, ducks and geese. The forested area is ideal for the crane-fly orchid, a rare species in Ohio. The site includes a wetland that contains spotted turtles, an endangered species in Ohio.[9]

On March 28, 2010, there was a fire in a lubrication system for one of the water pumps that feeds water for generation of steam. Reactor power automatically lowered to 68% due to the reduction in feed water flow, and the fire was extinguished in less than three hours. Two plant fire brigade personnel were brought to a local hospital for "heat stress" following the fire. No customers lost power during this event.[10] On February 9, 2016, the plant was unexpectedly shut down for maintenance to a recirculation pump. The reactor was brought back to full power by February 20, 2016.[11]

In addition to Perry, Energy Harbor also owns and operates the Davis-Besse and Beaver Valley nuclear plants.[12]

  Unit 1 Unit 2
Reactor Type BWR-6
Reactor Manufacturer General Electric
Turbine Manufacturer
Thermal Power 3,758 megawatts Unit canceled in 1994
Electrical Output 1,260 megawatts
Transmission System Connection 345,000 volts
Construction Permit Issued May 3, 1977 May 3, 1977 (construction suspended in 1985)
Initial Criticality June 1986 Unit canceled in 1994
First Electrical Generation November 13, 1986
Operational Date November 18, 1987
Expiration of Original License March 18, 2026

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.[13]

The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Perry was 83,410, an increase of 8 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 2,281,531, a decrease of 3.0 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles (80 km) include Cleveland (36 miles (58 km) to city center). Canadian population is not included in these figures.[14]

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 Perry was 1 in 47,619, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[15][16]

Security threats

At around 6:00pm EDT on April 7, 2021, the FBI's Cleveland Field Office tweeted that there was an ongoing security situation at the plant that necessitated a bomb squad.[17] The following day, law enforcement disclosed that a 33-year-old Michigan man drove to the power plant and told plant security officers that there was a bomb in the trailer he was towing with his pickup truck. No bomb was found; the man was arrested.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b c Cass, Andrew (November 17, 2017). "Perry Nuclear Power Plant celebrates 30 years of commercial operation". The News-Herald. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  2. ^ "PRIS - Reactor Details". www.iaea.org. International Atomic Energy Agency. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  3. ^ "EIA - State Nuclear Profiles". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  4. ^ Johnston, Louis; Williamson, Samuel H. (2022). "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved February 12, 2022. United States Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the Measuring Worth series.
  5. ^ Funk, John (March 28, 2018). "FirstEnergy Solutions will close its nuclear power plants, but is silent on bankruptcy restructuring". The Plain Dealer. Cleveland, Ohio. Retrieved March 29, 2018. During months of hearings, the company argued that its uncompetitive old coal and nuclear plants would become competitive once the price of natural gas increased. And at that point, customers would see credits on their monthly bills, they argued. Opponents cited federal predictions that natural gas would stay cheap for decades and customers would just keep on paying higher rates.
  6. ^ Pelzer, Jeremy (July 23, 2019). "Nuclear bailout bill passes Ohio legislature, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
  7. ^ a b Wamsley, Laura (2020-07-21). "Ohio House Speaker Arrested In Connection With $60 Million Bribery Scheme". NPR. Retrieved 2020-07-21. Last year's nuclear bailout law tacked on a charge to residents' power bills, sending $150 million a year to the nuclear power plants. They are owned by the company Energy Harbor, which was previously known as FirstEnergy Solutions.
  8. ^ U.S. v. Larry Householder, Jeffery Longstreth, Neil Clark, Matthew Borges, Juan Cespedes, and Generation Now (S.D. Ohio July 16, 2020).Text
  9. ^ "Ecological Stewardship of the Nuclear Energy Industry". Nuclear Energy Institute. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  10. ^ "Event Notification Report for March 29, 2010". U.S.N.R.C. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  11. ^ "Power Reactor Status Reports for 2016". Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  12. ^ "FirstEnergy". FirstEnergy. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  13. ^ "NRC: Emergency Planning Zones". United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  14. ^ Bill Dedman, Nuclear neighbors: Population rises near US reactors, NBC News, April 14, 2011 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42555888 Accessed May 1, 2011.
  15. ^ Bill Dedman, "What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk," NBC News, March 17, 2011 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42103936 Accessed April 19, 2011.
  16. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-05-25. Retrieved 2011-04-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. ^ @FBICleveland (8 April 2021). "The FBI is assisting local law..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ^ "Michigan man who claimed he had bomb outside nuclear plant arrested".

External links

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