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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

When the heat is on, the reactors are pumping out the juice

July 10, 2010 By Rod Adams

It has been a hot week here in Maryland and throughout the eastern portion of North America. As a guy who enjoys his air conditioned comfort during heat waves, I want to send a thank you note to the people who are operating all of the power plants, but especially to those nuclear plant operators who have put up some rather impressive statistics during the past week.

As an example of the kind of product that they have been supplying, here is a list of the reported output from the nation’s 104 licensed reactors for July 9, 2010.

Region 1 Power Reactor Status Report for July 9, 2010

UnitPower
Beaver Valley 1100
Beaver Valley 2100
Calvert Cliffs 1100
Calvert Cliffs 2100
FitzPatrick93
Ginna100
Hope Creek 196
Indian Point 2100
Indian Point 3100
Limerick 1100
Limerick 2100
Millstone 2100
Millstone 3100
Nine Mile Point 1100
Nine Mile Point 2100
Oyster Creek89
Peach Bottom 2100
Peach Bottom 3100
Pilgrim 1100
Salem 10
Salem 2100
Seabrook 1100
Susquehanna 1100
Susquehanna 294
Three Mile Island 1100
Vermont Yankee100

Region 2 Power Reactor Status Report for July 9, 2010

UnitPower
Browns Ferry 1100
Browns Ferry 297
Browns Ferry 3100
Brunswick 1100
Brunswick 2100
Catawba 1100
Catawba 2100
Crystal River 30
Farley 1100
Farley 2100
Harris 1100
Hatch 1100
Hatch 2100
McGuire 1100
McGuire 2100
North Anna 1100
North Anna 2100
Oconee 1100
Oconee 2100
Oconee 3100
Robinson 20
Saint Lucie 1100
Saint Lucie 2100
Sequoyah 1100
Sequoyah 2100
Summer100
Surry 1100
Surry 2100
Turkey Point 3100
Turkey Point 4100
Vogtle 1100
Vogtle 2100
Watts Bar 1100

Region 3 Power Reactor Status Report for July 9, 2010

UnitPower
Braidwood 1100
Braidwood 2100
Byron 1100
Byron 2100
Clinton97
D.C. Cook 1100
D.C. Cook 2100
Davis-Besse100
Dresden 2100
Dresden 3100
Duane Arnold100
Fermi 2100
Kewaunee100
La Salle 1100
La Salle 2100
Monticello100
Palisades100
Perry 1100
Point Beach 1100
Point Beach 2100
Prairie Island 1100
Prairie Island 2100
Quad Cities 1100
Quad Cities 2100

Region 4 Power Reactor Status Report for July 9, 2010

UnitPower
Arkansas Nuclear 1100
Arkansas Nuclear 2100
Callaway100
Columbia Generating Station100
Comanche Peak 1100
Comanche Peak 2100
Cooper100
Diablo Canyon 1100
Diablo Canyon 2100
Fort Calhoun100
Grand Gulf 1100
Palo Verde 1100
Palo Verde 2100
Palo Verde 3100
River Bend 1100
San Onofre 2100
San Onofre 3100
South Texas 1100
South Texas 2100
Waterford 3100
Wolf Creek 1100

You can find an NEI press release talking about the reactor fleet’s performance for the period from July 4-7 at As Eastern U.S. Sizzles, U.S. Nuclear Plants Operate at Exceptional Levels to Stabilize Grid

Related Posts

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

About Rod Adams

Managing member at Nucleation Capital, LP.
Atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience. Financial, strategic, and political analyst. Former submarine Engineer Officer. Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast. Resume available here.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jason Ribeiro says

    July 10, 2010 at 1:54 PM

    I wonder how wind farm output is doing right now? I guess we won’t know since their don’t post up-to-date readings of power output.

    • Rod Adams says

      July 10, 2010 at 2:35 PM

      Jason – all generators in Ontario Canada are required to post their output numbers. Here is the table for July 9, 2010
      http://reports.ieso.ca/public/GenOutputCapability/PUB_GenOutputCapability_20100709_v25.xml
      There is a new xml file put up every hour each day. You can find an archive list at
      http://reports.ieso.ca/public/GenOutputCapability/
      So far, I have not found any similar sites in the US except for the one published by Bonneville Power Authority at http://www.transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
      It looks like a big breeze just blew in last night after about four days of less than 20% output.

      • Bill Woods says

        July 10, 2010 at 4:42 PM

        Californian wind is here:
        http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
        And Danish power is available here (DK1 and DK2):
        http://www.nordpoolspot.com/reports/production/
        though it isn’t broken down by type. If you want to work, you can correlate production with price:
        http://www.nordpoolspot.com/reports/areaprice/
        Best wishes on your new career.

      • Jason Ribeiro says

        July 11, 2010 at 7:41 PM

        Thanks for the link, I’ve actually been searching for something like that for a long time.

  2. Ed says

    July 10, 2010 at 2:26 PM

    Rod – your readers may also like to know that many (if not all) of the reactors slightly below 100% are in the midst of a ‘coast-down’. This means their performance allowed them to get the maximum use from their fuel. The fissile U-235 that remains is not enough to sustain 100% and they will enter their planned rufuelling outages when demand comes down (with the temperatures) this autumn.

    • katana0182 (Dave) says

      July 11, 2010 at 2:43 AM

      Interesting. Never knew that.
      I would have imagined that the end of a cycle would be somewhat dramatic (in that once k < 1, in any state of the core with all rods out, multiplication would cease entirely in every state of the core), but I forgot about the negative temperature coefficient. So, I’m guessing that the coast-down begins once you start being unable to maintain k >= 1 at full operating temperature with all rods out. The reactor operating temperature then slowly drops as the core has less and less reactivity, so as to maintain k >= 1. Since there’s consequently less ?T between the turbine inlet temperature and the condenser, the plant slowly produces less output, until the end of cycle in the fall, when it’s time to refuel, and the plant is entirely shut down.
      Is this explanation right?

      • Rod Adams says

        July 11, 2010 at 4:11 AM

        @Dave – though I have never operated a commercial nuclear plant, I would bet that you are right on the money there.
        One thing that is completely different about nuclear reactor cores is that “running out of gas” is a very slow and fuzzy process that does not have a sharp end point like it does for other thermal plants. The full explanations can require numerous credit hours in reactor physics and thermodynamics, but you have done a great summary for a light water reactor with a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity that is feeding a steam plant secondary.

      • Ed says

        July 15, 2010 at 2:59 PM

        You’re correct Dave, as Rod said. Also remember that some of the reactors are BWRs (with the cardinal sin of sins in PWRs and Navy Subs… boiling in the core). BWR operation is significantly effected by a ‘void coefficient of reactivity’ that is typically an order of magnitude greater than the temperature coefficient. Think if it this way; with k<1, less fission, less energy, less voids, less fast and thermal neutron leakage, positive reactivity, k=1.

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