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Cooper Nuclear Station

Coordinates: 40°21′43″N 95°38′29″W / 40.36194°N 95.64139°W / 40.36194; -95.64139
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Cooper Nuclear Station
The reactor complex on June 20, 2011 during the 2011 Missouri River Floods
The reactor complex on June 20, 2011 during the 2011 Missouri River Floods
Map
CountryUnited States
LocationNemaha County, near Brownville, Nebraska
Coordinates40°21′43″N 95°38′29″W / 40.36194°N 95.64139°W / 40.36194; -95.64139
StatusOperational
Construction beganJune 1, 1968
Commission dateJuly 1, 1974
Construction cost$1.152 billion (2007 USD)[1]
OwnerNebraska Public Power District
OperatorNebraska Public Power District
Nuclear power station
Reactor typeBWR
Reactor supplierGeneral Electric
Cooling sourceMissouri River
Thermal capacity1 × 2419 MWth
Power generation
Units operational1 × 769 MW
Make and modelBWR-4 (Mark 1)
Nameplate capacity835 MW
Capacity factor94% (2021)
75.30% (lifetime)
Annual net output6880 GWh (2021)
External links
WebsiteCooper Nuclear Station
CommonsRelated media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

Cooper Nuclear Station (CNS) is a boiling water reactor (BWR) type nuclear power plant located on a 1,251-acre (506 ha) site near Brownville, Nebraska between Missouri River mile markers 532.9 and 532.5, on Nebraska's border with Missouri. It is the largest single-unit electrical generator in Nebraska.

Description

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CNS is owned and operated by the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), a political subdivision of the state of Nebraska.

The facility is named after Humboldt natives Guy Cooper Jr., and Guy Cooper Sr.[2] The senior Cooper's father, O. A. Cooper, built the first electrical plant in Humboldt in 1890; the two Guy Coopers served a total of 27 years on the board of NPPD and its predecessor agency, Consumers Public Power District.[3]

CNS was first put into operation in July 1974 and generates approximately 800 megawatts (MWe) of electricity. The plant consists of a General Electric BWR/4 series reactor plant and a Westinghouse turbine generator. The plant has a Mark I containment system.

In 1998, CNS was the first plant in the United States to load nuclear fuel containing uranium that had been provided under the Megatons to Megawatts Program, in which uranium removed from nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union was turned into low-enriched uranium and then into fuel.[4]

In September 2008, NPPD applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a renewal of the operating license for CNS, extending it for an additional twenty years.[5] In November 2010 CNS received its license renewal, which was the 60th renewal license to be issued by the NRC.[6]

In late 2003 NPPD signed a contract with Entergy Nuclear for management support services. An agreement was approved in January 2010 by NPPD to extend Entergy's management support services until January 2029. The original contract between the companies, signed in 2003, was for the remaining years of the plant's original operating license, which ran until January 18, 2014. In March 2022 NPPD announced that the Entergy contract would be terminated.[7]

Electricity Production

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Generation (MWh) of Cooper Nuclear Station[8]
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual (Total)
2001 570,854 511,780 276,090 550,990 566,188 512,170 552,287 542,855 532,491 557,507 33,329 0 5,206,541
2002 495,158 519,785 564,856 548,906 374,079 534,267 547,998 556,080 538,948 566,632 509,234 561,208 6,317,151
2003 570,858 371,269 0 100,096 473,604 0 515,736 549,216 467,125 483,390 478,233 482,806 4,492,333
2004 570,190 518,699 568,879 542,943 541,962 537,929 551,689 554,465 536,463 325,798 399,430 523,326 6,171,773
2005 212,974 168,277 586,909 504,109 581,006 539,729 560,062 560,750 462,607 578,778 565,803 570,917 5,891,921
2006 585,258 458,742 557,176 558,161 503,285 546,692 560,098 559,952 529,890 351,432 112,345 587,445 5,910,476
2007 551,175 528,415 581,860 560,976 497,995 553,996 562,389 556,546 556,189 581,260 556,135 584,312 6,671,248
2008 581,610 536,581 520,326 171,925 218,031 552,091 565,277 504,174 565,840 590,080 569,225 588,920 5,964,080
2009 587,498 504,938 435,330 568,654 583,854 561,883 576,686 572,285 435,733 0 317,583 590,135 5,734,579
2010 564,779 524,026 577,947 561,764 578,078 522,580 574,869 571,820 566,039 589,289 570,669 591,023 6,792,883
2011 588,152 528,133 222,112 0 404,967 564,552 569,259 570,471 564,037 591,506 571,226 593,689 5,768,104
2012 577,696 544,833 579,827 564,716 580,394 538,895 562,325 539,821 551,599 221,146 11,227 544,797 5,817,276
2013 585,509 526,150 586,081 568,988 583,935 534,493 540,960 572,432 553,501 589,858 570,476 591,639 6,804,022
2014 589,912 531,095 533,966 560,710 542,331 453,919 576,061 568,559 455,723 0 512,176 592,883 5,917,335
2015 587,113 533,977 589,883 564,689 532,358 538,878 574,358 574,340 563,194 590,591 567,743 583,647 6,800,771
2016 589,449 541,857 586,184 564,671 581,592 551,925 566,791 558,693 386,444 0 396,322 601,428 5,925,356
2017 600,284 535,812 594,643 572,954 548,837 566,137 575,530 581,200 569,647 598,546 567,434 601,713 6,912,737
2018 600,802 520,240 470,665 575,176 543,813 459,047 574,976 574,741 484,688 0 230,947 597,045 5,632,140
2019 599,741 535,889 594,028 571,805 588,606 562,395 577,309 578,535 568,007 599,121 576,456 599,708 6,951,600
2020 599,017 555,268 589,733 576,023 588,370 562,035 569,903 556,024 415,826 73,061 520,871 582,420 6,188,551
2021 593,104 537,796 593,538 572,048 581,317 557,635 572,827 571,013 564,009 590,923 549,176 597,236 6,880,622
2022 595,610 528,070 587,760 565,386 578,905 551,877 540,847 474,456 405,669 8,556 4,837,136
2023

Surrounding population

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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.[9] In 2010, the population within 10 miles of Cooper was 4,414; the population within 50 miles was 163,610. Cities within the 50-mile radius include Nebraska City, with a population of 7,289, located 25 miles (40 km) from the plant.[10][11]

Seismic risk

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at CNS was 1 in 142,857, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[12][13]

Events

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At 0402 CDT on June 19, 2011 a Notification of Unusual Event (the lowest of NRC emergency classifications) was declared due to the elevation of the Missouri River reaching 899.1 feet above mean sea level. This is above the Emergency Action Level HU1.5 elevation of 899 feet. Later, the Missouri River reached 900.6 feet on 6/23/2011 while elevation of 902 feet is the alert level for the plant.[14] [15] The plant left the emergency status at 9:47 a.m., July 12 after the river dropped to 895.8 feet—3 feet below the emergency status level.[16] The nearby Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station also faced flooding during this period.

On March 15, 2019, another Unusual Event low-level emergency was declared at Cooper due to flooding, with a forecast crest that exceeds the 2011 flooding.[17]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "EIA - State Nuclear Profiles". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  2. ^ "Cooper Nuclear Station". Archived 2008-11-21 at the Wayback Machine Nebraska Public Power District. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
  3. ^ "A Closer Look at Cooper Nuclear Station". Archived 2012-03-23 at the Wayback Machine Nebraska Public Power District brochure; online at Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management website. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
  4. ^ DeVolpi, Alexander; Minkov, Vladimir E.; et al. (2005). Nuclear Shadowboxing: Legacies and Challenges. Vol. 2. Kalamazoo, Mich.: DeVolpi. p. VII-54. ISBN 0-9777734-1-8.
  5. ^ "Cooper Nuclear Station". License Renewal Application. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). October 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-25.
  6. ^ "Nuclear power plant receives 20-year operating license renewal". Power-Gen Worldwide. PennWell Corporation. November 30, 2010. Archived from the original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved 2010-12-02.
  7. ^ "News Release: NPPD mutually agrees to end services contract with Entergy". www.nppd.com. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  8. ^ "Electricity Data Browser". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  9. ^ "NRC: Backgrounder on Emergency Preparedness for Nuclear Power Plants". Archived from the original on 2006-10-02. Retrieved 2013-12-13.
  10. ^ "Nuclear neighbors: Population rises near US reactors". NBC News. 2011-04-14. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  11. ^ Drozd, David. "Nebraska Incorporated Place Census Populations with Changes and Percent Changes: 1980 to 2010". Archived 2012-04-02 at the Wayback Machine Center for Public Affairs Research, University of Nebraska—Omaha. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
  12. ^ Dedman, Bill (Mar 17, 2011). "What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk". NBC News. Retrieved 2011-04-19.
  13. ^ Hiland, Patrick (Sep 2, 2010). "Memorandum, Safety/Risk Assessment Results for Generic Issue 199, 'Implications of Updated Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Estimates in Central and Eastern United States on Existing Plants'" (PDF). NRC. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 May 2017. Retrieved 19 Apr 2011.
  14. ^ Kehoe, Benjamin (Jun 20, 2011). "Unusual event declared due to Missouri river flooding". United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC. Retrieved 2011-06-23.
  15. ^ "Flood Facts and Information (June 2011)". Nebraska Public Power District, NPPD. June 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-06-21. Retrieved 2011-06-23.
  16. ^ "Cooper Nuclear Station no longer at emergency status | Local | journalstar.com".
  17. ^ Gardner, Nancy; Chris Peters (March 16, 2019). "Cooper Nuclear Station still operating but preparing for shutdown as Missouri River hits record levels". Omaha World-Herald.
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