Operating license extensions for each of the three units were approved in , extending plant operation until , , and , respectively.
APS , which operates the plant for the group of owners listed at the top. Nuclear power plant capacity factors are rising across the industry. In , Unit 2 reported a All three Palo Verde units are individually ranked among the top six producers in the U. For Palo Verde, was its 23rd consecutive year as the largest power generator in the U. Palo Verde is the only generating station of any technology to produce 30 million MWh in a single year, an achievement that it accomplished in for the 10th time, and in six of the past 10 years.
The Palo Verde staff is also well-practiced in the art and science of conducting short refueling outages and can turn around a unit in record time. In the spring of , the staff completed its first sub day refueling outage in plant history with a plant record-setting 29 days, 18 hours for Unit 1. In spring , the staff bettered that record by refueling Unit 2 in 28 days, 22 hours. At Palo Verde, the units are on an month refueling cycle, with two refuelings scheduled each year—one in the spring and another in the fall.
In aggregate, the three units have been running very well. From April 28 until Oct. During , Unit 2 recorded the best performance in plant history with consecutive days of operation, ending Oct. Each of the three units has a recent continuous run exceeding days.
Palo Verde is the only U. Palo Verde was the first nuclear power plant in the world and remains the largest in the U. APS concluded a landmark year agreement in with the five cities in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area to provide an annual allotment of up to 26 billion gallons of treated municipal effluent to Palo Verde through The tertiary treated effluent originates from the 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment plant in west Phoenix and is piped to Palo Verde, where it is further treated to meet the water quality standards established by the plant.
This makes it one of the largest energy industries in the United States. The Palo Verde Generating Station has not came without its fair share of controversy however. For commonly known reasons, nuclear radioactive material can be very dangerous if handled improperly.
Such health concerns are higher risks of cancer, mental illnesses as well as severe damage to internal organs that could be life threatening. Due to its near proximity to large metropolitan areas such as Phoenix, the Palo Verde Generating Station has been placed in category 4 of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations meaning that it is very closely monitored. Furthermore, as seen in Japan recently, earthquakes can be a major concern for Nuclear Power plants as such seismic activity can rupture the carefully made containment reaction cores that contain the nuclear material.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ranked this reactor at 18 of hundreds of different plants in America, meaning that it is relatively stable.
Lastly, expenditures for maintaining such a plant are over million dollars each year with the largest portion of these costs going to labor. While not entirely fool proof, the Palo Verde Generating Station serves as a integral part of the Arizona as well as the national economy. The RBMK reactor at Chernobyl used graphite to moderate the nuclear reaction, which made the facility difficult to control.
In addition, the Chernobyl plant did not have a way to contain the explosion and resulting radiation release. Travelers on Interstate 10 between Phoenix and the California border have likely noticed the three large concrete domes of Palo Verde. The thick steel and concrete domes are made to withstand massive impacts and keep any radiation from escaping. One of the key problems with the Chernobyl disaster was that people did not know what was happening or the danger the plant presented, and the government tried to keep it quiet.
All of those within 10 miles of it get mailed a calendar each year that , among other things, discusses the possibility of evacuations should a worst-case scenario occur.
Palo Verde also has an emergency operations center in the West Valley that would be open to state and county emergency professionals in case there was a problem at the plant that could affect people outside the plant. There are also work stations for media to help spread the word to the public if needed.
At Chernobyl, the government there didn't begin evacuating people until about 36 hours after the blast. Officials didn't even offer simple safety guidelines like telling people to stay indoors, which would have greatly reduced exposure to many people who faced an increased risk of long-term illness after the disaster. And the U.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission always has an inspector on site, whose job is to ensure safety rules are followed. Many children and adolescents near Chernobyl drank milk contaminated with radioactive iodine, which occurred because cows ate feed contaminated by the blast.
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