McGuire Nuclear Station

The McGuire Nuclear Station is a nuclear power plant located about 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina. The plant began construction in 1971, with the two reactors beginning operation in 1981 and 1984. Water from nearby Lake Norman is used to cool the condensers. The plant has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors and can produce 2,250 megawatts of net power. The plant achieved a net generation of 17,514 GW·h in 2005, representing 44% of the total nuclear power generation for the state of North Carolina. Ownership McGuire Nuclear Station is operated by Duke Power Company and owned by the Duke Energy Corporation. It is named for William McGuire, who served as president of Duke Power from 1959 to 1971. License The original operating licenses' dates of expiration were 2021-06-12 for Unit 1 and 2023-03-03 for Unit 2. In 2003, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the licenses for both reactors for an additional twenty years. Electricity production Surrounding population The NRC 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. The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of McGuire was 199,869, an increase of 66.8 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 2,850,782, an increase of 23.3 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Charlotte (17 miles to city center). Ice condensers The McGuire Nuclear Station uses ice condensers as part of its emergency containment systems. A nuclear plant ice condenser is a passive, static heat sink that relies on large quantities of ice to mitigate severe accidents. Ice condensers are designed to limit pressure in the event of an accidental steam release. This design allows smaller containment structures and reduced material requirements. Seismic risk The NRC's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at McGuire was 1 in 32,258, according to an NRC study published in August 2010. Stator replacement project During 2014 McGuire Nuclear Station powered down one of its units to undergo a routine refueling outage, critical to the operation of the plant. This outage was particularly significant because McGuire performed a major evolution – the replacement of a generator stator. The stator is part of the electric generator and is among the largest and heaviest components in the plant, weighing approximately 1.2 million pounds. The work was carried out by Siemens Energy Inc. The lifting contractor was Sarens who used a structural temporary lifting system to remove the existing Stator and install the new Stator. A specialist engineering company named Lowther-Rolton performed a "Technical Audit" of the lifting and installation engineering to ensure safety of operations. Lowther-Rolton were the original developers of the Technical Audit system for load movement operations. See also List of largest power stations in the United States References External links Official Site From Duke Energy Archived May 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine "McGuire Nuclear Power Plant, North Carolina". Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). October 3, 2008. Retrieved November 17, 2008. "McGuire 1 Pressurized Water Reactor". Operating Nuclear Power Reactors. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). February 14, 2008. Retrieved November 17, 2008. "McGuire 2 Pressurized Water Reactor". Operating Nuclear Power Reactors. NRC. February 14, 2008. Retrieved November 17, 2008.