VirtualGlobetrotting: Power - Nuclear

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Chernobyl Power Plant
darkhorse219 (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: darkhorse219.
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Site of world's worst nuclear disaster on 4/26/1986

Kudankulam Atomic Power Station
kaiken (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: kaiken.
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This station is scheduled to begin operation in 2007.

Disposal site for nuclear submarine reactors
kjfitz (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: kjfitz.
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Area 200 / Trench 94.
The burial ground contains 138 trenches running north and south. Sixty one of the trenches are 370 meters (960 feet) long, thirty one of the trenches are 293 meters long, and the remaining trenches vary. Trench 94 contains defueled US Navy submarine reactor compartments. The burial ground is marked and radiologically posted.
Waste Description: Trench 94 is oriented in an east-west direction. The reactor compartments are composed of various types of steel and approximately 392 tons of lead shielding.
Hull sections containing defueled reactor compartments of decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines are put in disposal trenches. In 1986, the Patrick Henry's hull section was the first one placed in Trench 94.
Once full, the trench will be filled with dirt and buried. The compartments are expected to retain their integrity for more than 600 years.
Use of the thick steel submarine hull as a disposal provides extra isolation between the environment and the low-level waste and hazardous lead that remain after the spent nuclear fuel has been removed.

Knolls Kesselring Site
kjfitz (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: kjfitz.
A naval nuclear R&D and training site, associated with the Department of Energy's nearby Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. This site has four land-based prototype reactors, like those used in nuclear powered submarines, which are used for research into developing improved nuclear propulsion systems, and for training military personnel in their use. Operated for the DOE by Lockheed Martin (Westinghouse operated it for many years previously).

Hanford Nuclear Site
kjfitz (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: kjfitz.
Hanford is one of five major Department of Energy nuclear processing plants and R&D laboratories in the United States. It has more than ten industrialized areas (most with reactors of some kind) located on a 562 square mile site on the Columbia River in eastern Washington. Originally built in secret to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project, the installation manufactured nuclear materials used in bombs for decades after the war, and it has become one of the most contaminated sites in the country, with millions of gallons of radioactive waste, much of it migrating through the soil towards the Columbia River. More than 10,000 people work on clean-up issues at the reservation, most of which continues to be closed to the public.

Never Used Ferris Wheel of Chernobyl's Ghost Town
losbeats (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: losbeats.
The town of Pripyat was created in 1970 mainly for the purpose of housing the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. After reactor no. 4 of the plant exploded, creating the world's worst nuclear accident (26 April 1986), the town of 47,000 was evacuated. The park including this ferris wheel was to open on May 1st of that year. It has never been used, and the town will remain too dangerous to habitate for several hundred years.

Site of SL-1 fatal nuclear reactor accident
The SL-1, the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a U.S. experimental military nuclear power reactor. It was destroyed in the first nuclear power plant accident in the United States. Part of the Army Nuclear Power Program, during design and build it was called the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR). It was intended to provide electrical power and heat for small, remote military facilities, such as radar sites near the Arctic Circle, and those in the DEW Line. The design power was 3 megawatts (thermal). Operating power was 200 kW electrical, 400 kW thermal, for space heating. For testing it was located approximately forty miles (60 km) west of Idaho Falls, Idaho, in the National Reactor Testing Station.
On December 21, 1960, the reactor was shut down for maintenance, calibration of the instruments, installation of auxiliary instruments, and installation of 44 flux wires to monitor the neutron flux levels in the reactor core. The wires were made of aluminium, and contained slugs of aluminium-cobalt alloy.
At 9:01 pm on January 3, 1961, after a shutdown of eleven days for the holidays, and during maintenance procedures, the SL-1 went prompt critical. In four milliseconds, the heat generated by the resulting enormous power surge caused water surrounding the core to begin to explosively vaporize. The water vapor caused a pressure wave to strike the top of the reactor vessel. This propelled the control rod and the entire reactor vessel upwards, which killed the operator who had been standing on top of the vessel, leaving him pinned to the ceiling. The other two military personnel, a supervisor and a trainee, were also killed. The victims were Army specialists John Byrnes and Richard McKinley and Navy Electrician's Mate Richard Legg.

Russian northern nuclear test site Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya was the site of extensive Soviet atmospheric and underground testing, including the largest thermonuclear device ever tested, a 58 megaton air-dropped bomb detonated October 23, 1961. Of the 42 underground explosions at Novaya Zemlya, 25 were accompanied by release of radioactive inert gases. There were three underwater explosions, each less than 20 kiloton, but most of the radionuclides remained in the water and sediments. A total of 17 reactors were dumped in the Barents Sea, to the west of Novaya Zemlya, including seven containing spent nuclear fuel.
Sub-critical hydrodynamic experiments with separate elements of nuclear ordnance are currently conducted at the Novaya Zemlya testing range. At least four or six such studies are conducted on Novaya Zemlya. These tests allow evaluation of criteria under which it is possible to store, transport and use nuclear ordnance safely.

Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear powerplant
Hinkkanen (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Hinkkanen.
Nuclear power plant of the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). There are six boiling water reactors here, Fukushima-Daichi 1-6. They started production 1971-1979.

City of Chernobyl
DonMartini (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: DonMartini.
The Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (originally named after Vladimir Lenin) in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union). It is regarded as the worst accident in the history of nuclear power, producing (due to a lack of a full containment building) a plume of radioactive debris that drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, UK, and eastern USA. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of roughly 200,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.

Semipalatinsk-16 - Russia's largets nuclear test site
Russian nuclear tests have been conducted in two major areas. The former Soviet Union’s largest nuclear test site was located near Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. The Semipalatinsk Test Site was founded in 1948 with the first nuclear explosion tested in 1949 and the last in 1989. Of the 467 nuclear detonations conducted there, 346 were underground, with the first of these underground experiments conducted in 1961. A total of 87 atmospheric and 26 surface nuclear detonations were also performed at the site between 1949 and 1989. Some tests involved multiple weapon detonations.
During the early days of the atomic energy program in the former Soviet Union, some unfortunate events occurred. The country's first atomic test in Semipalatinsk in 1949 exposed over 25,000 people downwind from the blast to significant doses of fission products.

North Korean Nuclear Reactor Under Construction in Soho-Ri
Pdunn (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Pdunn.
(GE image)
I Googled it, but came up empty. Sure looks like a reactor vessel to me, however. Looks like they intend to do their reprocessing underground by the facililty to the north east and the exstensive ttrenching to the plant's immediate east

Burial Site of the world's First Nuclear Reactor
cfanone (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: cfanone.
This is where the worlds first nuclear reactor is buried. It was the former site of resarch labs for Argonne National Labratory(3 miles west), previously called the Chicago Metallurgical Lab. The area with the roads is where the labs were located, however they were demolished and cleaned due to leakage of radioactive waste and other chemicals. The teardrop shaped clearing to the north is the burial site of the worlds first nuclear reactor. This area is more commonly known as Site A and Plot M respectively.

Black Fox Nuclear Plant
photog (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: photog.
The nuclear plant that never was. Southwest of Inola, Oklahoma.
Protestors shut down construction in 1980s.

Chernobyl Sarcophagus
DonMartini (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: DonMartini.

Entrance to Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project
The purpose of the Yucca Mountain project is to determine if Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste storage. The present prime contractor for the project is Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC (a consortium of government contractors Bechtel Corporation and Science Applications International Corporation). The consortium employs 1,300 people on the project. The main tunnel of the Exploratory Studies Facility is U-shaped 5 miles (8 km) long and 25 feet (8 m) wide. There are also several cathedral-like alcoves that branch from the main tunnel. It is in these alcoves that most of the scientific experiments are conducted. The galleries (smaller tunnels perpendicular to the main tunnel) where waste will be stored have not been constructed.
The proposed repository zone will cover 1150 acres (4.7 km²), be 1000 feet (300 m) below the surface of the mountain and 1000 feet (300 m) above the water table. The waste will be encased in a multilayer stainless steel and nickel alloy package covered by titanium drip shields that function also as rock shields.
By early 2002, 7 billion US dollars had been spent on the project which has made Yucca Mountain the most studied piece of geology in the world. Total cost is expected be between 50 and 100 billion dollars. The cost of the facility is being paid for by the public using nuclear generated electricity and the federal government for disposal of defense nuclear waste.

Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant (Abandoned)
JoeZierer (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: JoeZierer.

Fort Belvoir SM-1 Nuclear Reactor
jbottero (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: jbottero.
The decommissioned 10-megawatt thermal reactor at Fort Belvoir, VA, is notable as first nuclear power reactor in the U.S. to provide electricity to a commercial power grid. It has an interesting history in that it was a test bead for various designs of portable reactors that the Navy envisioned being moved to remote locations on self-contained ships and aircraft.

Arzamas-16 / Sarov Russian Federal Nuclear Center
Bettr image
Arzamas-16, currently Sarov, was established on April 13, 1946 as a home to the Design Bureau No. 11 (KB-11), currently the Russian Federal Nuclear Center – the All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF, also known as Arzamas-16), Russia first nuclear weapons design center. It is the unnamed "Installation" of Nobel Peace Laureate Andre Sakharov's biography, responsible for the design of the first Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs. It was inititally given several provisional names, such as Base 112, Site 550 or simply the "Site".
The KB-11 Design Bureau (now the world-renowned RFYaTs-VNIIEF) was organized in the Gorky (now Nizhni Novgorod) Region. KB-11, headed by its first director Pavel Zernov and Yuly Khariton who was its chief designer and scientific supervisor for many years, made a decisive contribution to the elimination of US nuclear armament monopoly. This center developed and manufactured the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 detonated in 1949 and the first Soviet thermonuclear charge RDS-6S (academician Sakharov’s brainchild) successfully tested in 1953.
Arzamas-16 is often referred to as the Russian Los Alamos. Some of its residents even refer to its alboratory as Los Arzamas in recognition of its close similarity to Los Alamos. In December, 1993, the Los Alamos County Council agreed to invite Sarov to be a Sister City.
At present, Arzamas-16 is a home to two nuclear weapons facilities: the VNIIEF design institute and the Avangard serial warhead assembly/disassembly facility. The population of Arzamas-16 is approximately 83,000. Of them 20,000 work at the institute and 10,000 at the Avangard plant.

Mayak nuclear plant
Hinkkanen (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Hinkkanen.
Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Ozersk which in 1957 was the site of Soviet Union's worst nuclear accident until Chernobyl. Ozersk was then known only as Chelyabinsk-40, and later Chelyabinsk-65.

Ågestaverket
alfjon (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: alfjon.
Sweden´s first nuclearreactor, were in service between 1963-1974.
The reactor were built into the ground for higher protection, the coolingtower are still standing.
Today Stockholm firebrigade use the area for exercise. There are an old subway cart an an old Draken jetfighter used for practise.
Link in swedish, but there are some pictures.

Quehanna Nuclear Reactor Site
Parabellum (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Parabellum.
In a December 8, 1953, speech to the United Nations, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced a new Atoms for Peace policy, and the United States Congress enacted his program into law the following year. Atoms for Peace "made funding accessible to anyone who had the imagination, if not the ability, to harness the atom's power for peaceful purposes". Under the new program, the airplane manufacturer Curtiss-Wright Corporation sought a large isolated area in central Pennsylvania "for the development of nuclear-powered jet engines and to conduct research in nucleonics, metallurgy, ultrasonics, electronics, chemicals and plastics". Curtiss-Wright worked closely with the state and, in June 1955, George M. Leader, the Governor of Pennsylvania, signed legislation that authorized the construction of a research facility at Quehanna. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sold Curtiss-Wright 8,597 acres for $181,250 ($22.50 an acre), and gave the company a 99-year lease on the remaining 42,596 acres at $30,000 a year. Curtiss-Wright controlled 51,193 acres (80.0 sq mi) in a regular 16-sided polygon, which was easier to fence than a circular area.

EBR-1 - The first breeder reactor
The Experimental Breeder Reactor-I (EBR-I) was the first nuclear reactor in the world to produce useable quantities of electric power. On December 20, 1951, a successful experiment at EBR-I conclusively proved that it was possible to harness the energy produced by a nuclear reactor as the reactor successfully generated enough electricity to power four light bulbs. A second experiment the next day produced enough power to run the entire EBR-I. The first steps had been taken to realize the enormous potential for nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

Hanford Nuclear Waste Burial Area
jbottero (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: jbottero.
This is part of Hanford's "200 Area" where nuclear waste disposal takes place.

Closed city of Krasnoyarsk-45 / Zelenogorsk
The closed city of Krasnoyarsk-45, currently Zelenogorsk, was established in the late 1950s – early 1960s to produce enriched uranium for the Soviet nuclear weapons program.
The construction of a gaseous diffusion plant probably began in the early 1960s and the plant started to produce enriched uranium in 1964. (In 1964, the U.S. intelligence community predicted that the plant would reach its design capacity in 1967.) In parallel, the construction of a large fossil fuel and hydro-electric plant (GRES-2) began to provide the enrichment complex and the town with heat and electricity.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began to replace the gaseous diffusion machines with centrifuges. The last gaseous diffusion cascade in Krasnoyarsk-45 was shut down in 1990.
Currently, the Electrochemical Plant in Krasnoyarsk-45 accounts for 29 percent of Russia's enrichment capacity. In addition to uranium, the complex also separates isotopes of tungsten, molybdenum, krypton, xenon, germanium, iron, sulfur, oxygen, and carbon. Since 1997, the facility has been involved in down-blending HEU from dismantled weapons under the U.S.-Russian HEU agreement.

Power grid in front of the nuclear power plant
DonMartini (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: DonMartini.

Negev Nuclear Research Center
Hinkkanen (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Hinkkanen.

Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant
bubaonline (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: bubaonline.
Beaver Valley Power Station is a nuclear power plant near Shippingport, Pennsylvania.
This plant has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors.
Unit 1: 970 megawatts
Unit 2: 920 megawatts

Narora Atomic Power Station
kaiken (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: kaiken.
One of six nuclear power stations in India

Chelyabinsk-65 / Ozersk Combine 817 / Production Association Mayak
Chelyabinsk-65 (in the past Chelyabinsk-40), currently Ozersk, was established in 1948 to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. The construction of the Combine 817, currently the Production Association Mayak, began in 1947. The first production reactor (Reactor A) went into operation in June 1948 and the first batch of plutonium was produced at the radiochemical plant (Plant B) on February 26, 1948. This plutonium was fabricated into nuclear device components at the plutonium finishing plant (Plant V). The Chelyabinsk-65 nuclear complex continued to expand during the next four decades and is currently one of the largest and most diverse nuclear facilities in Russia.
The industrial area bordering the southeastern shore of the lake Kyzyltash, where the plutonium production complex is located, is approximately 90 km2.
The production of plutonium in Chelyabinsk-65 took place in five uranium-graphite reactors (A, IR-AI, AV-1, AV-2, and AV-3) commissioned between 1948 and 1955. The uranium-graphite reactors were shut down between 1987 and 1990.

Department of Energy Savannah River Site
forthefallendrms (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: forthefallendrms.
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a nuclear reservation in the United States in the state of South Carolina, located on land in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell Counties adjacent to the Savannah River, 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons. It covers 310 square miles (800 km2) and employs more than 10,000 people. It is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The management and operating contract is held by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions LLC (SRNS), and the Liquid Waste Operations contract is held by Savannah River Remediation, which is a team of companies led by URS Corporation. A major focus is cleanup activities related to work done in the past for the nation's nuclear buildup. Currently none of the reactors on-site are operating (see list of nuclear reactors), although two of the reactor buildings are being used to consolidate and store nuclear materials. SRS is also home to the Savannah River National Laboratory and the nation's only operating radiochemical separations facility. Its tritium facilities are also the United States' only source of tritium, an essential component in nuclear weapons. And, the nation's only mixed oxide fuel (MOX) manufacturing plant is being constructed at SRS. When operational, the MOX facility will convert legacy weapons-grade plutonium into fuel suitable for commercial power reactors. Future plans for the site cover a wide range of options, including host to research reactors, a reactor park for power generation, and other possible uses. DOE and its corporate partners are watched by a loose combination of local, regional and national regulatory agencies and citizen groups. Security is provided by Wackenhut Services, Inc.

Israel's Soreq nuclear reactor
The Soreq Nuclear Research Center is located near Yavne, west of Beersheb, and shares a security zone with the Palmichim Air Base. The functional equivalent of the US Livermore or Los Alamos national weapons laboratories, it is responsible for nuclear weapons research, design and fabrication. Activities at Soreq include research and development of nuclear weapons.

Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant
azppunk (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: azppunk.

Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
jbottero (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: jbottero.
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Piketon, Ohio that produces enriched uranium, including weapons-grade uranium.

Bilibino - northernmost nuclear power plant in the world
susuman (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: susuman.
Bilibino is Russia’s only nuclear power heating plant. It also is the only NPP in the world beyond the arctic circle. The plant is quite small and safer than most soviet-era nuclear facilities in Russia, as stated by the US-State of Alaska commission who were invited to a safety examination of the site in 1993. The plant is indeed situated in the Chukotka peninsula, at the north-eastern end of Siberia, just across the Bering Straits from Alaska. The plant's goal is as much to generate heat for the local mining town as to produce electricity : this part of Oriental Siberia is said the coldest inhabited place on Earth.

Nuclear waste being discharged into the ocean
1983 was the year of the "Beach Discharge Incident" in which high radioactive discharges resulted in the closure of a beach. BNFL received a fine of £10,000 for this discharge. 1983 was also the year in which Yorkshire Television produced a documentary "Windscale: The Nuclear Laundry", which claimed that the low levels of radioactivity that are associated with waste streams from nuclear plants such as Sellafield did pose a non-negligible risk.
In its early days, Sellafield discharged low-level radioactive waste into the sea, using a flocculation process to remove radioactivity from liquid effluent before discharged. Metals dissolved in acidic effluents produced a metal hydroxide flocculent precipitate following the addition of ammonium hydroxide. The suspension was then transferred to settling tanks where the precipitate would settle out, and the remaining clarified liquor, or supernate, would be discharged to the sea. In 1994 the Enhanced Actinide Removal Plant (EARP) was opened. In EARP the effectiveness of the process is enhanced by the addition of reagents to remove the remaining soluble radioactive species. EARP has recently (2004) been enhanced to further reduce the quantities of Tc-99 released to the environment.

Cooling canals at Turkey Point Power Plant
TexasAndroid (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: TexasAndroid.
Over ten miles of cooling canals.
The plant itself has an entry at:
http://googleglobetrotting.com/info.php/mid/2711

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
adrbr (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: adrbr.
The plant is located in Central Ukraine near the city of Zaporizhia, on the banks of the Kakhovka Reservoir on the Dnipro river. It has 6 VVER-1000 pressurized light water nuclear reactors, each with a power rating of 950 MWe, with total power output of 5700 MWe. The first five were successively brought online between 1985 and 1989, and the sixth was added in 1995. The plant generates about half of the country's electricity derived from nuclear power and more than a fifth of total electricity generated in Ukraine.

Sellafield nuclear power plant
Sellafield is the name of a nuclear site, close to the village and railway station of Seascale, operated by the British Nuclear Group, but owned since 1 April 2005 by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Previously Sellafield was owned and operated by BNFL. Sellafield is located on the coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. It houses the Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, the Magnox nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, the inactive Calder Hall Magnox nuclear power station — the world's first commercial nuclear power station, and other older nuclear facilities.

Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant
bubaonline (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: bubaonline.
The Shearon Harris nuclear power plant is a single Westinghouse designed pressurized-water nuclear reactor operated by Progress Energy. Located in New Hill, North Carolina, in the United States, about 20 miles (30 km) southwest of Raleigh, it generates 900 MWe, has a 523 foot (160 m) natural draft cooling tower, and uses Harris Lake for cooling.

Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant
neotrix (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: neotrix.
The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Onagawa in the Oshika District and Ishinomaki city, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It is managed by the Tohoku Electric Power Company. It was the most quickly constructed nuclear power plant in the world.
A fire at the plant following the 2011 Sendai earthquake was reported by Kyodo News

Satsop Nuclear Power Plant ("Whoops")
Satsop is known for the unfinished Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, a facility designed to house two 1250 megawatt pressurized water reactors. Construction of the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant began in 1977 and was halted in 1983 after a $961 million budget shortfall, leaving the plant 76% complete. The plant was maintained, ready for construction to be resumed, until 1994, when it was finally canceled. In 1995, a demolition plan was finalized that eventually turned the site into the Satsop Development Park.
Because of the controversy surrounding the construction and cancelation of the power plant, the facility is known locally as "Whoops", a play on its official acronym, WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply System).

Ginna Nuclear Power Plant
bubaonline (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: bubaonline.
The Robert E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, commonly known as Ginna,
is a nuclear power plant located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario,
approximately 20 miles northeast of Rochester, New York.
Ginna is one of the oldest nuclear power reactors still in operation in the United States,
having gone into commercial operation in 1970.
It is a single unit Westinghouse 2-Loop pressurized water reactor with 498 MW.
Ginna is owned and operated by Constellation Energy Group.

Seabrook Nuclear Station
RCH (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: RCH.
Seabrook is a PWR in commercial operation in August 1990
From romulusnr:
The opening of this plant was a major New England controversy during the late 80s. A billboard on Interstate 95 northbound once read: "Welcome President Bush! You are entering the Seabrook Nuclear Zone -- NO EVACUATION POSSIBLE." The plant currently generates over 1 GW of power.

North Korean nuclear reactor
Analogman (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Analogman.
Five megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbon, North Korea, used to produce weapons grade material for nuclear weapons. Just south of this facility, on the north side of the river bend, is the uranium processing facility and a new, 50 mw reactor.

Idaho National Labs Test Area North
Parabellum (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Parabellum.
In 1949, an area of the fringe of the NRTS property named "Test Area North", or TAN, was developed by the U.S. Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission to support the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program's attempt to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft. The programs' Heat Transfer Reactor Experiments (HTRE) were conducted here in 1955 by contractor General Electric, and were a series of tests to develop a system of transferring reactor-heated air to a modified General Electric J47 jet engine. The planned aircraft, the Convair X-6, was to be test flown at TAN, and a large hangar with radiation shielding was built on the site. The program was cancelled, however, before the accompanying 15,000-foot runway was built.

Cocooned Hanford F Reactor
The plutonium for the Trinity device, tested at Los Alamos in New Mexico, and the Fat Man bomb, later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, was created in the B, D and F reactors. F Reactor is the third Hanford plutonium production reactor to be placed in interim safe storage - called cocooning - by the Bechtel Hanford-led Environmental Restoration Project team. Cocooning involves demolishing the reactor building down to the three-foot-thick concrete shield walls surrounding the reactor core. All openings in the remaining structure are sealed and a new roof is installed.

Al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Center
pdunn (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: pdunn.
Pivotal to Iraq's Nuclear Program, Al-Tuwaitha was largely destroyed during the first Gulf War.

Fukushima-Daini nuclear powerplant
Nuclear power plant of the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). There are four boiling water reactors here, Fukushima-Daini 1-4. They started commercial production 1982, 1984, 1985 & 1987 respectively.

Oak Ridge K-25 Gaseous Diffusion plant
This one plant absorbed 25 percent of the Manhattan Project's wartime funding.
the world's first gaseous diffusion plant, the method of uranium enrichment with the best theoretical basis, championed by the British, but which had never been tried in practice.
K-25 was huge, even by Oak Ridge standards, with fifty four-story buildings totaling 2,000,000 square feet, in a U-shape measuring a 2,600 feet long by 1,000 feet wide. Covering some 44 acres, the K-25 building was the world's largest roofed structure when it was completed in March 1945. Housing and service facilities were built for the population that eventually reached 15,000.
Y-12Inside K-25, a series of over 1,000 huge cells were linked in a cascade through which uranium hexafluoride gas traveled, with small fractions of the U-235 isotope separated by a barrier material with microscopic pores. Production problems at K-25 led to an August 1943 decision that K-25 would not fully enrich uranium but would produce partially enriched feeder material for Y-12. A key production problem was developing a suitable diffusion barrier, material with millions of tiny holes that would also withstand the extremely corrosive gas involved. That problem was not solved until 1944 enabling production in 1945.

Hanford 300 Area
Hanford’s 300 Area was home to the fuel manufacturing operations at the Site as well as the experimental and laboratory facilities. At one time, six small scale nuclear reactors were located in the 300 Area which is only a few miles from the city of Richland. The 300 Area is adjacent to the Columbia River and is also right next to the main north-south road that takes many Hanford employees from their Tri-Cities homes to their work locations at the Site.

McGuire Nuclear Power Plant
wil9000 (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: wil9000.

Closed city of Sverdlovsk-45 / Lesnoy
The closed city of Sverdlovsk-45, currently Lesnoy, was established in 1947 as a home to the Plant 418 – an electromagnetic separation (calutron) facility to produce HEU. An industrial-scale separation facility, SU-20, was completed at the Plant 418 simultaneously with the Soviet first gaseous diffusion plant D-1 in Sverdlovsk-44. Initially, the SU-20 facility was used to increase the level of enrichment of uranium received from the D-1 plant from 70 to 90 percent uranium-235. Improvements in the gaseous diffusion technology have subsequently eliminated the need in electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes and the SU-20 facility was redirected to enrich non-uranium isotopes.
In the late 1950s, a portion of the Plant 418 was adopted to house a nuclear warhead assembly/disassembly facility – the Combine "Electrochimpribor." The Combine was established to duplicate the Electro-Mechanical Plant "Avangard" in Arzamas-16 in assembling physics packages and nuclear warheads. Eventually, it has become Russia’s largest warhead assembly complex.
Sverdlovsk-45 is located near Nizhnyaya Tura, approximately 160 km north of Yekaterinburg. Its population is 58,000. Approximately 10,000 work at the warhead production complex.
The warhead assembly/disassembly plant is located north-west of the residential area. The production complex is supported by two large national warhead stockpile storage sites, the nearest of which is located approximately 10 km west of the main production area.

Very Large Adit Into Mountain Adjacent Iran's Isfahan Nuclear Processing Facilities
pdunn (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: pdunn.

Rocketdyne Field Laboratory
Also known as the Santa Susana Field Test Facility, this is a major rocket and propulsion R&D installation, a rambling 2,700 acre complex of 13 rocket engine test stands, and other field test facilities, in the Simi Hills, northwest of Los Angeles. Rocketdyne, once the rocket engine development subsidiary of Rockwell International, now owned by Boeing, is one of the leading suppliers of rocket technology to NASA and defense organizations. The Apollo rocket engines were tested here, as were the early V-2 rockets of the German rocket pioneer Wernher Von Braun, who occasionally worked at the site. Around 700 people are employed at the site, which also conducts laser research and other defense-related programs. The Department of Energy has facilities here, and has conducted research in nuclear fueled rockets and satellites. Nearby Moorpark claims to be the first community lit by commercial nuclear power, from an early reactor at this facility (Arco Idaho makes a similar claim). Major environmental issues have recently brought more outside attention to the site.
Alos on this site:
A nuclear energy R&D facility owned by the Department of Energy, and operated by Rocketdyne/Boeing, involved in applying nuclear technologies related to space flight, defense programs, and liquid metal reactors, in addition to solar energy and remediation technologies. The DOE facility is located on 90 acres within Rocketdyne's 2,700 acre rocket field test facility in the Simi Hills. Nearby Moorpark claims to be the first community lit by commercial nuclear power, from a plant at this facility (Arco Idaho makes a similar claim).

Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP)
kaiken (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: kaiken.

Historic Hanford B Reactor
The B-Reactor at Hanford Site, Washington, was the first large scale plutonium production reactor ever built. The project was commissioned under the Manhattan Project, during World War II, to develop the first nuclear weapons. The B Reactor was one of three reactors—along with the D and F reactors—built about six miles apart on the south bank of the Columbia River. The plutonium for the Trinity device, tested at Los Alamos in New Mexico, and the Fat Man bomb, later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, was created in the B, D and F reactors.

Former ICI Bellingham explosives plant and nuclear power plant
In 1801, the population was 355 people, but the demand for explosives created by the First World War led to a massive expansion of Billingham. In 1917, it was decided by the government to build a plant to produce ammonia. Later this was used predominantly in the production of chemicals for fertiliser. Eventually, in 1926, this plant became part of the newly formed company, ICI.
From 1971 to 1988 ICI operated a small General Atomics TRIGA Mark I nuclear reactor at its Billingham factory. It also operated the coal-fired North Tees Power Station designed by Giles Gilbert Scott on the banks of the Tees to provide electricity for its plants. This was eventually decommissioned and demolished in 1987. The site of the power station is now Billingham Reach Industrial Estate, an international wharf owned by Able UK Ltd.
ICI no longer operates in Billingham having sold many of its businesses during the company's restructuring of the 1990s. Some of the company's former manufacturing plants are still in operation, run by other chemical companies.

Closed city of Penza-19 / Zarechny
The closed city of Penza-19, currently Zarechny, was established on July 20, 1954 as a site for a serial production facility to manufacture electronic and automatic components of nuclear warheads. The construction began in April 1955 and the plant produced its first output in 1958.
In the 1960s, the plant was renamed the Penza Device-Building Plant. Later, on its basis, the Production Association "Start" was established. In addition to the Device-Building Plant, the "Start" complex includes the Kuznetsk Machine-Building Plant producing specialized equipment for the warhead production complex. Penza-19 is also a home to the Institute of Radio and Electronic Equipment (NIKIRET). NIKIRET is a branch of the Moscow-based Association Eleron, Minatom’s leading designer of physical security equipment.
At present, "Start" manufactures detonation systems, permissive-action link devices, and other electro-mechanical and electronic components and subassemblies of nuclear weapons. In addition, the facility produces physical protection equipment and automated instrumentation and control systems.

Krasnoyarsk-26 / Zheleznogorsk - Mining and Chemical Combine
Krasnoyarsk-26, currently Zheleznogorsk, was established in 1950 to produce plutonium for weapons. The facility’s original name was the Combine 815. At present it is known as the Mining and Chemical Combine.
The Krasnoyarsk-26 industrial production area (a fenced off area on the surface) is about 17 km2. The sanitary-protection area is 131 km2. The plutonium production complex comprises the reactor plant, the radiochemical plant, the reactor coolant preparation plant, the partially completed RT-2 radiochemical plant, and the engineering plant. A distinctive feature of the plutonium production complex in Krasnoyarsk-26 is that the reactor plant, radiochemical plant, laboratories, and storage facilities are located 200-250 m underground, in a multi-level system of underground tunnels inside a mountain, which include water supply and ventilation systems are located in the mountain. To the north-west of the underground complex are underground reprocessing waste injection wells (the Northern test site).
The Krasnoyarsk-26 reactor plant consisted of three graphite reactors (AD, ADE-1, and ADE-2). Two graphite-moderated, light-water-cooled reactors, similar to the U.S. plutonium production reactors at Hanford, WA, were installed more than 200 meters into a mountainside. Both reactors were cooled by water directly from the Yenisey River. The first went into operation on 25 August 1958, and the second in 1961, producing plutonium-239 for nuclear weapons. In 1964, a third reactor went into operation with a closed-loop cooling system, not directly discharging into the river. The AD and ADE-1 reactors, which started in 1958 and 1961, were shut down in 1992. The third reactor generates heat and electricity for the local populations and cannot be shutdown before a replacement source of power becomes available.

Millstone Nuclear Power Plant
Millstone Nuclear Power Station units 2 and 3 are located at a former quarry in Waterford, Connecticut.
Millstone 1 was a General Electric boiling water reactor shut down in November 1995 before being permanently closed in July 1998.
Millstone 2 is a Combustion Engineering plant built in the 1970's,
and has a maximum power output of 2700 MWth. It has 2 steam generators,
and 4 reactor cooling pumps (RCP).
It is currently undergoing an upgrade to its safe shutdown system which already met NRC standards.
During its refueling outage in October 2006, it installed a new pressurizer.
Millstone 3 is a Westinghouse plant that started operating in 1986,
and has a maximum power output of 3411 MWth

Boiling Nuclear Superheater reactor
robsv (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: robsv.
The Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) reactor was built in Rincon, Puerto Rico by the Atomic Energy Commission (with assistance from the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority). It went on-line in April of 1964, and was generating full power in 1965. Technical difficulties and the need for expensive modifications led to its shutdown in 1968 and subsequent decommissioning.

50 Mwe Reactor at Yongbyon
pdunn (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: pdunn.

Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear fuel processing plant
Construction on Y-12 began in February 1943 to implement the electromagnetic separation method, with first production in November of the same year (although construction continued through 1945). Tennessee Eastman took over operation of Y-12 in June 1943.
At Y-12, nine main processing buildings and over two hundred support buildings were constructed to house the process. The primary process used calutrons--large arrangements of electro-magnets which separated weapons grade U-235 out of naturally more abundant U-238. Because of the war time shortage of copper, 14,700 tons of silver from the U.S. Treasury were used in the calutron windings and associated electrical conductors. Y-12 employed 22,000 workers in the peak war years period, but the gaseous diffusion process at the K-25 Plant proved to be more effective for uranium enrichment and Y-12 was mothballed at the end of the war. Later the massive Y-12 facility became a nuclear weapons production facility and large scale lithium separation plant, a material critical to the hydrogen bomb.

Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant
jmolenski (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: jmolenski.

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
neotrix (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: neotrix.
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant, completed but never fueled, on Bataan Peninsula, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Manila in the Philippines. It is located on a 3.57 square kilometer government reservation at Napot Point in Morong, Bataan. It was the Philippines' only attempt at building a nuclear power plant.

South Texas Nuclear Project
chadvw (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: chadvw.
Nuclear plant located near Bay City Texas. Said to have the largest man-make lake

Hanford KW and KE Reactors
Hanford's "sister reactors", the K-East and the K-West Reactors, were built side-by-side in the early 1950’s. The two reactors went operational within four months of each other as K-West went into service in January of 1955 and K-East started operations in April of that same year. K-West was the seventh reactor built at Hanford; K-East was the eighth. The two reactors both ran for more than fifteen years before being shut down in 1970 and 1971.

Abandoned Nuclear Plant
dunnswash (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: dunnswash.
The abandoned Hartsville nuclear power plant.

Nuclear submarine fuel rods on rail cars
To be shipped off to Idaho.

TA-54 nuclear waste disposal site
robsv (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: robsv.
This site was opened in 1957, and is composed of two areas: L and G. Area L is used for treating, packaging, and storing of nuclear waste. Area G is the disposal site for solid low-level radioactive waste.

Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO)
Arkansas Nuclear One 1
Russellville, Ark., United States
Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
Net Output: 836 MWe
Operable. Initial criticality: 08/1974. Commercial start: 12/1974.
Arkansas Nuclear One 2
Net Output: 858 MWe
Operable. Initial criticality: 12/1978. Commercial start: 03/1980.

Sequoyah Nuclear Plant
Parabellum (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: Parabellum.

Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant
The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant is located on the Tennessee River near Decatur and Athens, Alabama, on the north side (right bank) of Wheeler Lake. The nuclear power plant is named after a ferry that operated at the site until the middle of the 20th century. The site has three General Electric boiling water reactor (BWR) nuclear generating units and is owned entirely by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Browns Ferry was TVA's first nuclear power plant; its approval occurred on June 17, 1966 and construction began in September of the same year. At the time of its initial operation, it was the largest nuclear plant in the world. It was the first nuclear plant in the world to generate more than 1 gigawatt of power.
In 2006, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the licenses for all three reactors, extending them for an additional twenty years.

Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) Reactor Containment Building
AlbinoFlea (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: AlbinoFlea.
From www.nrc.gov:
The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. But it brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. It also caused the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. Resultant changes in the nuclear power industry and at the NRC had the effect of enhancing safety.
The sequence of certain events -- equipment malfunctions, design related problems and worker errors -- led to a partial meltdown of the TMI-2 reactor core but only very small off-site releases of radioactivity.
The accident began about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, when the plant experienced a failure in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant. The main feedwater pumps stopped running, caused by either a mechanical or electrical failure, which prevented the steam generators from removing heat. First the turbine, then the reactor automatically shut down. Immediately, the pressure in the primary system (the nuclear portion of the plant) began to increase. In order to prevent that pressure from becoming excessive, the pilot-operated relief valve (a valve located at the top of the pressurizer) opened. The valve should have closed when the pressure decreased by a certain amount, but it did not. Signals available to the operator failed to show that the valve was still open. As a result, cooling water poured out of the stuck-open valve and caused the core of the reactor to overheat.
As coolant flowed from the core through the pressurizer, the instruments available to reactor operators provided confusing information. There was no instrument that showed the level of coolant in the core. Instead, the operators judged the level of water in the core by the level in the pressurizer, and since it was high, they assumed that the core was properly covered with coolant. In addition, there was no clear signal that the pilot-operated relief valve was open. As a result, as alarms rang and warning lights flashed, the operators did not realize that the plant was experiencing a loss-of-coolant accident. They took a series of actions that made conditions worse by simply reducing the flow of coolant through the core.
Because adequate cooling was not available, the nuclear fuel overheated to the point at which the zirconium cladding (the long metal tubes which hold the nuclear fuel pellets) ruptured and the fuel pellets began to melt. It was later found that about one-half of the core melted during the early stages of the accident. Although the TMI-2 plant suffered a severe core meltdown, the most dangerous kind of nuclear power accident, it did not produce the worst-case consequences that reactor experts had long feared. In a worst-case accident, the melting of nuclear fuel would lead to a breach of the walls of the containment building and release massive quantities of radiation to the environment. But this did not occur as a result of the Three Mile Island accident.
The accident caught federal and state authorities off-guard. They were concerned about the small releases of radioactive gases that were measured off-site by the late morning of March 28 and even more concerned about the potential threat that the reactor posed to the surrounding population. They did not know that the core had melted, but they immediately took steps to try to gain control of the reactor and ensure adequate cooling to the core. The NRC’s regional office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, was notified at 7:45 a.m. on March 28. By 8:00, NRC Headquarters in Washington, D.C. was alerted and the NRC Operations Center in Bethesda, Maryland, was activated. The regional office promptly dispatched the first team of inspectors to the site and other agencies, such as the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, also mobilized their response teams. Helicopters hired by TMI's owner, General Public Utilities Nuclear, and the Department of Energy were sampling radioactivity in the atmosphere above the plant by midday. A team from the Brookhaven National Laboratory was also sent to assist in radiation monitoring. At 9:15 a.m., the White House was notified and at 11:00 a.m., all non-essential personnel were ordered off the plant's premises.
By the evening of March 28, the core appeared to be adequately cooled and the reactor appeared to be stable. But new concerns arose by the morning of Friday, March 30. A significant release of radiation from the plant’s auxiliary building, performed to relieve pressure on the primary system and avoid curtailing the flow of coolant to the core, caused a great deal of confusion and consternation. In an atmosphere of growing uncertainty about the condition of the plant, the governor of Pennsylvania, Richard L. Thornburgh, consulted with the NRC about evacuating the population near the plant. Eventually, he and NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie agreed that it would be prudent for those members of society most vulnerable to radiation to evacuate the area. Thornburgh announced that he was advising pregnant women and pre-school-age children within a 5-mile radius of the plant to leave the area.
Within a short time, the presence of a large hydrogen bubble in the dome of the pressure vessel, the container that holds the reactor core, stirred new worries. The concern was that the hydrogen bubble might burn or even explode and rupture the pressure vessel. In that event, the core would fall into the containment building and perhaps cause a breach of containment. The hydrogen bubble was a source of intense scrutiny and great anxiety, both among government authorities and the population, throughout the day on Saturday, March 31. The crisis ended when experts determined on Sunday, April 1, that the bubble could not burn or explode because of the absence of oxygen in the pressure vessel. Further, by that time, the utility had succeeded in greatly reducing the size of the bubble.

Montecuccolino nuclear reactor
giove (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: giove.
Il reattore nucleare RB-3 di Montecuccolino è destinato ad attività di ricerca. E' in gestione ENEA ed è attualmente in fase di disattivazione.

Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) East Cooling Tower
AlbinoFlea (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: AlbinoFlea.
From www.nrc.gov:
The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. But it brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. It also caused the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. Resultant changes in the nuclear power industry and at the NRC had the effect of enhancing safety.
The sequence of certain events -- equipment malfunctions, design related problems and worker errors -- led to a partial meltdown of the TMI-2 reactor core but only very small off-site releases of radioactivity.
The accident began about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, when the plant experienced a failure in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant. The main feedwater pumps stopped running, caused by either a mechanical or electrical failure, which prevented the steam generators from removing heat. First the turbine, then the reactor automatically shut down. Immediately, the pressure in the primary system (the nuclear portion of the plant) began to increase. In order to prevent that pressure from becoming excessive, the pilot-operated relief valve (a valve located at the top of the pressurizer) opened. The valve should have closed when the pressure decreased by a certain amount, but it did not. Signals available to the operator failed to show that the valve was still open. As a result, cooling water poured out of the stuck-open valve and caused the core of the reactor to overheat.
As coolant flowed from the core through the pressurizer, the instruments available to reactor operators provided confusing information. There was no instrument that showed the level of coolant in the core. Instead, the operators judged the level of water in the core by the level in the pressurizer, and since it was high, they assumed that the core was properly covered with coolant. In addition, there was no clear signal that the pilot-operated relief valve was open. As a result, as alarms rang and warning lights flashed, the operators did not realize that the plant was experiencing a loss-of-coolant accident. They took a series of actions that made conditions worse by simply reducing the flow of coolant through the core.
Because adequate cooling was not available, the nuclear fuel overheated to the point at which the zirconium cladding (the long metal tubes which hold the nuclear fuel pellets) ruptured and the fuel pellets began to melt. It was later found that about one-half of the core melted during the early stages of the accident. Although the TMI-2 plant suffered a severe core meltdown, the most dangerous kind of nuclear power accident, it did not produce the worst-case consequences that reactor experts had long feared. In a worst-case accident, the melting of nuclear fuel would lead to a breach of the walls of the containment building and release massive quantities of radiation to the environment. But this did not occur as a result of the Three Mile Island accident.
The accident caught federal and state authorities off-guard. They were concerned about the small releases of radioactive gases that were measured off-site by the late morning of March 28 and even more concerned about the potential threat that the reactor posed to the surrounding population. They did not know that the core had melted, but they immediately took steps to try to gain control of the reactor and ensure adequate cooling to the core. The NRC’s regional office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, was notified at 7:45 a.m. on March 28. By 8:00, NRC Headquarters in Washington, D.C. was alerted and the NRC Operations Center in Bethesda, Maryland, was activated. The regional office promptly dispatched the first team of inspectors to the site and other agencies, such as the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, also mobilized their response teams. Helicopters hired by TMI's owner, General Public Utilities Nuclear, and the Department of Energy were sampling radioactivity in the atmosphere above the plant by midday. A team from the Brookhaven National Laboratory was also sent to assist in radiation monitoring. At 9:15 a.m., the White House was notified and at 11:00 a.m., all non-essential personnel were ordered off the plant's premises.
By the evening of March 28, the core appeared to be adequately cooled and the reactor appeared to be stable. But new concerns arose by the morning of Friday, March 30. A significant release of radiation from the plant’s auxiliary building, performed to relieve pressure on the primary system and avoid curtailing the flow of coolant to the core, caused a great deal of confusion and consternation. In an atmosphere of growing uncertainty about the condition of the plant, the governor of Pennsylvania, Richard L. Thornburgh, consulted with the NRC about evacuating the population near the plant. Eventually, he and NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie agreed that it would be prudent for those members of society most vulnerable to radiation to evacuate the area. Thornburgh announced that he was advising pregnant women and pre-school-age children within a 5-mile radius of the plant to leave the area.
Within a short time, the presence of a large hydrogen bubble in the dome of the pressure vessel, the container that holds the reactor core, stirred new worries. The concern was that the hydrogen bubble might burn or even explode and rupture the pressure vessel. In that event, the core would fall into the containment building and perhaps cause a breach of containment. The hydrogen bubble was a source of intense scrutiny and great anxiety, both among government authorities and the population, throughout the day on Saturday, March 31. The crisis ended when experts determined on Sunday, April 1, that the bubble could not burn or explode because of the absence of oxygen in the pressure vessel. Further, by that time, the utility had succeeded in greatly reducing the size of the bubble.

Hinkley Point B nuclear power station
Hinkley Point A, a Magnox station, has now closed, but Hinkley B is still open.

Palisades Nuclear Power Plant
The Palisades nuclear power plant is located near South Haven, Michigan.
Palisades is owned and operated by Entergy.
It was operated by the Nuclear Management Company and owned by CMS Energy Corporation.
Its single Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor.
The Westinghouse Electric Company turbine generator can produce 725,000 kilowatts of electricity.
It first generated electricity December 31, 1971.

Tomsk-7 nuclear processing centers
Seversk (Russian: Северск) is a town (since 1956) in Tomsk Oblast, Russia. It is located at 56°37′N 84°50′E, on the bank of Tom River. Population is 118,800 (2001). It is also known as Tomsk-7.
As is the tradition with Soviet towns containing secret facilities (Ozersk aka Chelyabinsk-40, Zheleznogorsk aka Atomgrad aka Krasnoyarsk-26, Sarov aka Arzamas-16), the name is actually a P.O. Box number and implies that the place is located some distance from the city of Tomsk (15 km to the NW, in fact).
Seversk is the site of Siberian Chemical Combine (Sibkhimkombinat), founded in 1954. It is comprised of several nuclear reactors and chemical plants for separation, enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and plutonium. Nuclear warheads were being produced and stored on the premises.
One of the most serious nuclear accidents at SCC occurred on April 6, 1993, when a tank containing a highly radioactive solution exploded.
The Siberian Chemical Combine (SKhK), located in Seversk (formerly known as Tomsk-7), is one of the principal nuclear materials production sites in the MINATOM complex, with uranium processing facilities, production reactors, a spent fuel reprocessing plant, a uranium enrichment plant, and a variety of other processing and storage facilities. Tomsk-7 was established in 1949 to produce and process fissile materials for the nuclear weapons program. The Siberian Chemical Combine (originally the Combine 816) is Russia’s largest plutonium production and fissile material management complex.

Pile chimney at Windscale nuclear accident site
Following the decision taken in January 1947 for the UK to have an independent nuclear deterent, Sellafield was chosen as the location of the plutonium production plant with the initial fuel load into the Windscale Piles commencing July 1950. By July of 1952 the separation plant was being used to separate plutonium and uranium from spent fuel.
Unlike the early US reactors at Hanford, which consisted of a graphite core cooled by water, the Windscale Piles consisted of a graphite core cooled by air. Each pile contained almost 2000 tonnes of graphite, and measured over 24 feet high by 50 feet in diameter. Fuel for the reactor consisted of rods of uranium metal, approximately 1 foot long by one inch in diameter, and clad in Aluminium.
The piles were shut down following a fire in Pile 1 on 10 October 1957 which destroyed the core and released an estimated 750 terabecquerels (TBq) (20,000 curies) of radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including Iodine-131, which is taken up in the body by the thyroid. Consequently milk and other produce from the surrounding farming areas had to be destroyed. Following the fire Pile 1 was unservicable, and Pile 2, although undamaged by the fire, was shut down as a precaution.
In the 1990s, the UKAEA started to implement plans to decommission, disassemble and clean up, both piles; the decommissioning is now partially complete.

Catawba Nuclear Station
wil9000 (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: wil9000.

Perry Nuclear power plant
feer2000 (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: feer2000.

Zion Nuclear Power Plant
June, 1973 to February, 1998; has been shutdown for decommissioning

Bushehr Nuclear Facility
romulusnr (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: romulusnr.
Possibly a part of Iran's recent nuclear weapons program, the Bushehr facility was originally built as part of a German cooperation in the 70s, but is now being built with Russian help. One reactor is completed, the other is still under construction.

Yongbyon Nuclear Facility
romulusnr (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: romulusnr.
It can be interesting to look for rectangular spots of discoloration on the zoomed-out views, because these are areas of high-res imagery. Sometimes you notice a high-res area that is not in a place you would expect. Why is this spot so interesting to people with imaging satellites? The answer to this spot is: it is the location of Communist North Korea's nuclear weapons facility. The actual fuel-producing reactor is above the loop, just inside the curve.

Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station
TexasAndroid (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: TexasAndroid.

Limerick Nuclear Power Plant
SpiderX22 (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: SpiderX22.
The Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania is located next to the Schuylkill River in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, northwest of Philadelphia. The facility has two General Electric boiling water reactor (BWR) units, cooled by natural draft cooling towers. When conditions are right, these cooling towers emit enough water vapor to be seen as far away as Centralia in Columbia County.
The two units are capable of producing almost 1,200 megawatts of power each, which combined would provide electricity to over 2 million households. Exelon Corporation owns and operates this facility.

North Anna nuclear power plant
The plant has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors which went on-line in 1978 and 1980 respectively.
Together the reactors generate 1.79 gigawatts.

Watts Bar nuclear power plant
Watts Bar Facts & Figures:
Watts Bar operates one nuclear generating unit.
Construction at Watts Bar began in 1973 and was completed in 1996.
arrow The winter net dependable generating capacity is 1,167 megawatts.
In September 2000 Watts Bar Unit 1 set a record for continuous operation of TVA reactors of similar design. Unit 1 operated for 512 consecutive days, breaking the old mark of 468 days set at TVA’s Sequoyah Unit 1 in February 2000.

Atucha I and Atucha II nuclear plants
adrbr (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: adrbr.
Atucha I is one of two operational nuclear power plants of Argentina.
The plant is a Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR). It employs a mixture of natural uranium and enriched uranium (0.85% of 235U), with heavy water for refrigeration and moderation. It has a thermal power of 1,179 MWth, and generates 357 MWe of electricity, which is delivered at 220 kilovolts to the Argentine Interconnection System, supplying about 2.5% of the total electricity production (2005).
Atucha II is a projected nuclear power plant in Argentina, located in Lima, Buenos Aires, on a site next to Atucha I. Its construction started in 1980, but it has never been finished (it is around 80% completed). Like Atucha I, it is a Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), but was planned to have a much higher power (thermal power approx. 2,000 MW, electrical 750 MW). At the time when it was started, it had the largest reactor pressure vessel of any nuclear power plant worldwide. The total cost is now estimated at US$3.8 billion, or about $5500/kWe, considerably higher than the worldwide mean of about $1500/kWe.
Partly as a response to the energy shortage caused by natural gas crisis of 2004, the issue of Atucha II was taken up by the Argentine government. In 2005 President Néstor Kirchner signed a decree to reactivate the construction and pledged to finish it by 2009. New technicians were hired and a budget of about $120 million was requested for 2006. Eduardo Messi, president of Nucleoeléctrica Argentina S.A. (the firm in charge of the plant), told reporters that 93% of the components were either in storage or already installed.
On 23 August 2006 the government announced the re-activation of the national nuclear programme, and updated its promise to finish Atucha II by 2010, devoting a total of 1,850 million pesos ($596/€466 million). The plant is now slated to generate about 750 MW (5% of Argentina's total energy production).

Hanford Fast Flux Test Facility
The Fast Flux Test Facility is a 400-megawatt liquid-metal cooled fast neutron flux nuclear test reactor owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. The facility is located in the 400 Area of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington State. Currently, the FFTF is undergoing deactivation.

Nuclear submarine reactor on barge
To be shipped to Hanford, WA.

ENEA - Frascati Research Centre - Italian nuclear fusion research facility
The area to the west is censored in LL. Note the name of the roads; many are scientists who did nuclear research.

Vogtle Electric Generating Plant
Unit 1 began commercial operation in May 1987. Unit 2 began commercial operation in May 1989. Each unit is capable of generating 1,215 megawatts (Mw) for a total capacity of 2,430 Mw. The plant is powered by pressurized water reactors (PWR) manufactured by Westinghouse. The turbines and electric generators are manufactured by General Electric.

Oconee Nuclear Power Plant
One of the largest Nuclear Power Plants inthe country.

Isfahan Nuclear Processing Facility
romulusnr (VirtualGlobetrotting)
By: romulusnr.
In the news: Nuclear processing facility in Isfahan, where Iran has recently restarted processing uranium for nuclear fuel, in spite of EU and US concerns.

Hanford D and DR Reactors
The world’s second full-scale nuclear reactor was the D Reactor at Hanford which was built in the early 1940’s and went operational in December of 1944. D Reactor ran through June of 1967, and was ultimately cocooned in 2004.
The reactor next to it is known as DR, or the D Replacement. DR Reactor was built in 1949-50 because Hanford scientists thought D Reactor was going to fail and they wanted to take advantage of the D Reactor pumphouse and other support buildings. However, they solved D Reactor's problems and the two reactors operated side-by-side until the mid-1960s. The Control Room of D Reactor is housed in the Smithsonian Museum, but is currently not on display.

Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant
Construction of the plant began in 1970. Unit 1 achieved commercial operation in December 1977. Unit 2 began commercial operation in July 1981
Each unit is capable of generating 888 megawatts (mw) for a total capacity of 1,776 mw. The plant is powered by Westinghouse pressurized water reactors.

Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant
This Taiwan's 4th nuclear power plant is scheduled to begin operation in 2008.