The Electrical Generation and Transmission Records Book
and other things electrical...
Fascinating facts relating to the use of electricity. Dedicated to those that build, operate and maintain these facilities that are so essential to our well being.
compiled by Jack R. Calhoun
(Newest entries and updated material appear at the top.)
ALSTOM to build biggest ever steam turbine for New EPR Nuclear Power Plant in France - ALSTOM has been chosen by French utility EDF to supply the turbine island for the world’s biggest European Pressurized Reactor nuclear power plant at Flamanville, France. The order is worth more than 350 million euros to ALSTOM.In close partnership with EDF, ALSTOM will carry out the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the whole 1750 MW turbine island and directly supply all the major turbine island components, including Arabelle steam turbine, generator, condenser and moisture separator reheaters. EDF is the world’s major nuclear power generation company with 58 units in service. September 5, 2006.
The First Electric Car. Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage. A small-scale electric car was designed by Professor Stratingh of Groningen, Holland, and built by his assistant Christopher Becker in 1835. Practical and more successful electric road vehicles were invented by both American Thomas Davenport and Scotsmen Robert Davidson around 1842. Both inventors were the first to use non-rechargeable electric cells. Frenchmen Gaston Plante invented a better storage battery in 1865 and his fellow countrymen Camille Faure improved the storage battery in 1881. This improved-capacity storage battery paved the way for electric vehicles to flourish. France and Great Britain were the first nations to support the widespread development of electric vehicles in the late 1800s. In 1899, a Belgian built electric racing car called "La Jamais Contente" set a world record for land speed - 68 mph - designed by Camille Jénatzy. It was not until 1895 that Americans began to devote attention to electric vehicles after an electric tricycle was built by A. L. Ryker and William Morrison built a six-passenger wagon both in 1891. Many innovations followed and interest in motor vehicles increased greatly in the late 1890s and early 1900s. In 1897, the first commercial application was established as a fleet of New York City built by the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company of Philadelphia. The early electric vehicles, such as the 1902 Wood's Phaeton were little more than electrified horseless carriages and surreys. The Phaeton had a range of 18 miles (From The History of Electric Vehicles, Internet)
Largest Incandescent Lamp A 30,000 watt incandescent lamp, having a capacity of about 60,000 candlepower, the largest lamp of its kind ever manufactured, was shown publicly for the first time at a recent convention of the Illuminating Engineering Society at Swampscott, Mass. This monster lamp was developed and constructed at the National Lamp Works of the General Electric Company at Cleveland, Ohio, primarily for motion picture studio use. Its wattage is 1,200 times larger than the average household lamp and the electric power required to operate three such lamps would be equivalent power to operate the average trolley car. This lamp has a bulb 12 inches in diameter and 18 inches high. The light which it produces is equal to the combined light from 2,400 electric lamps of the size commonly used in the home. The filament is made of tungsten wire, / inch in diameter and 93 inches long, constructed in four coils. This wire, if drawn into filament wire of the size used in the 25 watt household lamp, would supply filaments for 55,000 such lamps. hirteen of these lamps have been made for a motion picture studio in Schenectady, N.Y. where it is claimed the light from these lamps is equal to or the nearest that has yet come to sunlight. It is claimed the advantage of the incandescent over the arc lamp is the absence of the flicker caused by the carbon filaments and the softer tone of light rays. With the carbon arc lamps, the light is more of a ghastly white and does not bring out the color tones so much desired in motion picture production. These lights are classified as of the Mazda C type, being gas filled. They are lighted from a 120 volt, 250 ampere circuit. Consuming 30 kilowatts, the cost to operate such a lamp, with electric current figured at 10 cents per kilowatt hour, would be $3. per hour. From Science Service Smithsonian Museum 2006 Original Caption by Science Service General Electric.
The World's Fastest Electric Car AC Propulsion's tzero roadster is a reason to not give up on the electric vehicle. The tzero does 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds, according to the San Diego based company, and it does it on only 200 horsepower because of its light weight and torque. If for nothing else, the tzero's $220,000 sticker price puts it in exotic-car territory. The low weight helps make the tzero so quick, but its torque--the turning force that pulls it off the line--is just as important, if not more. Conventional internal combustion engines need to rev to a certain rate before reaching their peak torque, but the tzero's torque peaks instantly, with 183 ft-lbs. available from 0 to 5,000 rpm. Indeed, the tzero can only go 280 to 300 miles at 60 mph without recharging--even if it can recharge on any 120- or 240-V power socket. And if you accelerate it like an Italian exotic, or even take it on a hilly route, that range can decrease by up to about 20%. The range has actually increased over time. AC Propulsion had made the tzero with lead-acid batteries since 1997, but this year released a revamped version with the kind of lithium-ion batteries used in laptop computers. The range, which increased to 280 to 300 miles from 100 miles per charge, now compares well with fuel cell cars. But even if AC Propulsion claims the vehicle has efficiency equivalent to 70 mpg (and zero emissions), the tzero is, to a certain extent, an exercise in automotive fantasy. Its Spartan interior looks like a science project, in which most of the controls apart from the CD player are gadgets to monitor the battery and tiny 110-lb. motor. Drivers get an analog current meter, voltmeter, altimeter, and battery-voltage display with LED lights that measures temperature and charging limits. (From Company Information)
Ethanol_- A fuel for electricity production? Not likely. Usually more energy is required for its creation than it can deliver. To become energy independent, we would have to grow corn on every square inch of the U.S. including Alaska and then half that much again. For more information go to http://zfacts.com/p/60.html
The Electric Chair During the 1880's two developments set the stage for the invention of the electric chair. Beginning in 1886, the New York State Government established a legislative commission to study alternate forms of capitol punishment. Hanging was then the number one method of carrying out the death penalty, even while considered too slow and painful a method of execution. Another development was the growing rivalry between the two giants of electrical service. The Edison General Electric Company founded by Thomas Edison established themselves with DC service. George Westinghouse developed AC service and started the Westinghouse Corporation. Thomas Edison reacted to the competition and the prospect of losing to AC service by starting a smear campaign against Westinghouse, claiming that AC technology was unsafe to use. In 1887, Edison held a public demonstration in West Orange, New Jersey, supporting his accusations by setting up a 1,000 volt Westinghouse AC generator attaching it to a metal plate and executing a dozen animals by placing the poor creatures on the electrified metal plate. The press had a field day describing the horrific event and the new term " electrocution " was used to describe death by electricity. On June 4, 1888, the New York Legislature passed a law establishing electrocution as the state's new official method of execution, however, since two potential designs (AC and DC) of the electric chair existed, it was left to a committee to decide which form to choose. Edison actively campaigned for the selection of the Westinghouse chair hoping that consumers would not want the same type of electrical service in their homes that was used for execution. Later in 1888, the Edison research facility hired inventor Harold Brown. Brown had recently written a letter to the New York Post describing a fatal accident where a young boy died after touching an exposed telegraph wire running on AC current. Brown and his assistant Doctor Fred Peterson began designing an electric chair for Edison, publicly experimenting with DC voltage to show that it left the poor lab animals tortured but not dead, then testing AC voltage to demonstrate how AC killed swiftly. Doctor Peterson was the head of the government committee selecting the best design for an electric chair, while still on the payroll of the Edison Company. It was not surprising when the committee announced that the electric chair with AC voltage was chosen for the statewide prison system. On January 1, 1889, the world's first electrical execution law went into full effect. Westinghouse protested the decision and refused to sell any AC generators directly to prison authorities. Thomas Edison and Harold Brown provided the AC generators needed for the first working electric chairs. George Westinghouse funded the appeals for the first prisoners sentenced to death by electrocution, made on the grounds that "electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment." Edison and Brown both testified for the state that execution was a quick and painless form of death and the State of New York won the appeals. Ironically, for many years people referred to the process of being electrocuted in the chair as being "Westinghoused". Edison's plan to bring on the demise of Westinghouse failed, and it soon became clear that AC technology was vastly superior to DC technology. Edison finally admitted years later that he had thought so himself all along. (From website About.com)
What is Electricity? Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena to be caused by something else. Quote by Ambrose Bierce, 1944........Electricity us made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons that you cannot see with your naked eye unless you have been drinking. Quote by Dave Barry............We believe that electricity exists because the electric company keeps billing us for it each month, but we can’t figure out how it gets through the wires. Quote by Dave Barry........I believe electricity is a time machine. Every time the electricity goes off we go back 150 years. Quote by Terry Boston. 2006 ........Old timers, who carried visitors through the new hydro power house at Guntersville in the early days, more than once heard the question "Is the water fit to drink after the electricity has been taken from it." A Quote from Frank Adkins.......The only course I failed in my life was an electrical engineering course. I would not dare try to explain anything remotely close to this field to anyone. Quote by Mildred McGuire.........What is electricity? This question is impossible to answer because the word "Electricity" has several contradictory meanings. These different meanings are incompatible, and the contradictions confuse everyone. If you don't understand electricity, you're not alone. Even engineers and scientists have a hard time grasping the concept. Quote from a web page by William J. Beaty, Electrical Engineer.
Too Cheap to Meter. Nuclear critics frequently claim that nuclear energy has failed to deliver on its early promise of "electricity too cheap to meter". The original source of this quotation is a talk in New York on September 16th, 1954, to the National Association of Science Writers by Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, then Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, when he said: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy electrical energy in their homes too cheap to meter." What the critics do not tell is that Strauss was talking about nuclear fusion energy, not fission that is today's nuclear energy. The phrase has reportedly been repeated by the respected nuclear pioneer Alvin Weinberg.Nevertheless, it is a stupid remark. Anyone can understand that any means of generating and distributing large amounts of electricity, renewable or non-renewable, requires large and hence expensive engineering structures. Thus even if the fuel were free, capital charges for a reactor, heat exchangers, an electric generator, a switchyard, transmission lines and a distribution system would still be appreciable.
FutureGen is an initiative to build the world's first integrated sequestration and hydrogen production research power plant. The U.S. Department of Energy has signed an agreement with the FutureGen Industrial Alliance to build FutureGen, a prototype of the fossil-fueled power plant of the future, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced December 6.The nearly $1 billion government-industry project, first announced in 2003, will produce electricity and hydrogen with no emissions of pollutants, including carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The FutureGen Industrial Alliance will contribute $250 million to the project. Alliance members include companies in the United States, Australia and China.
"There's always a conspiracy theory and a stupidity theory. I've found the stupidity theory answers more things than the conspiracy theory. You don't have to be a Ph.D. in economics to figure out that if you have a shortage of something as vital as electricity and you leave it to the marketplace, prices go through the ceiling." -- David Freeman, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, explaining why the price of electricity is so high in his state.
"'So what are we to do?"........... "Can we learn from the past and establish a long-term energy plan? The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has an "Electricity Technology Roadmap Initiative" that addresses the world population growth and the role of electricity in that growth. The Initiative predicts that by 2050 the world’s population will reach 10 billion and that will require an additional 1,000 MW of electric generation being added every two days for the next 50 years. That means the world will need nearly 10,000 additional 1,000 MW units. EPRI makes the point that the world’s climate cannot tolerate this much new generation from carbon-based fuel (oil, gas, and coal) plants. Nor can it come from renewable energy. For example, TVA with an installed capacity of 28,502 MW and a sizeable research and development effort has reached 8 MW of installed renewable energy generation (not including hydro-electric) in 25 years. Electric utilities are going in the direction of more fossil-fueled plants for additional capacity. The TVA newspaper "Inside TVA, volume 22, number 12" says ..."Gas-fired turbines are by far the most popular type of equipment being built in the country as well as in the Valley, Hall says. Nationally, 300,000 MWs of new power have been announced for completion between 2000 and 2008, some 95% of them are combustion turbine units."So what are we to do? The new central plants that we build should be all nuclear plants. They are clean, they don’t use oxygen, they are reliable, they are economically competitive in spite of over-regulation, and they have an unsurpassed safety record." (From am edited excerpt from "A Citizen’s View of Electricity; Its Production and Consumption, by Jere M. Ballentine, retired nuclear power industry executive, 2001).
World's First Electric Generator In 1832 Hippolyte Pixii demonstrates a hand-driven "magneto-electric machine," a generator in which a horseshoe magnet rotates in front of two coils. This is believed to be the first continuously acting current generator to produce alternating current. (From "The Enerty Time Machine") : http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/time_machine/1830ce-1840ce.html
United Kingdom set to build the world's first commercial wave farm. When deployed in 2006, the three wave power generation units will provide 2.25 megawatts to 1,500 homes. And if all goes well with the initial build, OPD is set to deliver an additional 30 units, for a total of 20 megawatts of generation. The wave power unit is called the "Pelamis:" The Pelamis is a semi-submerged, articulated structure composed of cylindrical sections linked by hinged joints. The wave-induced motion of these joints is resisted by hydraulic rams, which pump high-pressure oil through hydraulic motors via smoothing accumulators. The hydraulic motors drive electrical generators to produce electricity. Power from all the joints is fed down a single umbilical cable to a junction on the sea bed. Several devices can be connected together and linked to shore through a single seabed cable. A novel joint configuration is used to induce a tuneable, cross-coupled resonant response, which greatly increases power capture in small seas. Control of the restraint applied to the joints allows this resonant response to be 'turned-up' in small seas where capture efficiency must be maximized or 'turned-down' to limit loads and motions in survival conditions. Each Pelamis unit generates up to 750kW of power, although actual output will vary with wave intensity. The Portugal wave farm will run about €8 million (roughly $10 million) -- not cheap by any means, but a worthwhile investment in a promising source of clean power.Posted by Jamais Cascio at May 22, 2005. http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story
Lowest Cost Power: TVA’s Browns Ferry and Sequoyah nuclear plants had the lowest production costs for 2002-2004 of all U.S. nuclear plants reporting their costs, according to Nucleonics Week, an industry publication Browns Ferry and Sequoyah ranked first and second, respectively, for the three-year period. Browns Ferry produced power at 1.239 cents per kilowatt-hour, with Sequoyah producing power at 1.248 cents per kWh, compared to the reported industry three-year average of 2.068 cents per kWh. TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant’s three-year average production cost of 1.523 cents per kWh ranked third for single unit plants. July 28, 2005, The Chattanooga Times..
World’s First 1 million volt transmission Line: ZHENGZHOU, China Jul 26, 2005 -- Preparations have begun for building a station for a 1,000 kilovolt electricity transmission line in central China's Henan Province. The line was designed to transmit electricity produced by coal-fired generators with a total capacity of 2.4 million kilowatts in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, both of which are rich in coal. According to plan, construction of the line will begin at the end of the year and is scheduled to be completed and put into operation in 2007. By Comtex News.
Braver than Brave?- - --- High-Risk Electrical Workers: A special team of 3 men maintain and repair live high-voltage power lines--an elite team of pilot and lineman that looks for damage and makes critical repairs without turning the power off. Barehanding involves a helicopter flying up to live power lines stretching a metal wand out to the line and energizing the helicopter and lineman to the full strength of the power line. The lineman wearing a special metal fiber suit then works on the wire by sitting on the helicopter skid or climbing onto the bare line. This technique makes the lineman chopper and pilot all part of the electrical circuit with 345,000 volts running through both men and machine. For two days we follow members of the USA Airmobile team in Wisconsin as they risk their lives to inspect and repair critical power lines that were struck by a tornado. And we trace the development of this high-risk work conceived of in 1979 by Mike Kurtgis. (From the television History Channel, July 28, 2005)
The Best Russian Nuclear Power Plant. MOSCOW, August 17 (RIA Novosti) - The nuclear power plant in the town of Volgodonsk in the Rostov region of southern Russia has been named the best plant in the country according to Russia's Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, Rosenergoatom. The award of best power plant was determined according to parameters in 11 main and nine additional categories. Performance in terms of security, operation stability, efficiency, accident rate, radiation security, maintenance and repair parameters, financial and economic activities, and fire safety were taken into account. Preparations for the autumn-winter heating season, personnel policy, public relations, and the use of new kinds of nuclear fuel were considered as additional parameters. The nuclear power plants in Kalinin, central Russia, and the Kola Peninsula, northwestern Russia, came in second.
By 1980 all electric power (solar, and atomic) is likely to be virtually costless, From --Henry Luce, Founder and publisher of Time, Life and Fortune Magazines.
Rural Alaska community researches nation's first tiny nuclear reactor Electric stoves are a convenience, but in the Yukon River city of Galena, many people pass them by -- the appliances suck up more juice than residents can afford. With Galena tucked into the western part of Alaska, diesel oil that powers the electrical plant must be towed 350 miles by barge. Customers pay 30 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to a national average of 8.71 cents, so they cook with propane, turn off lights and limit television time. In need of relief, the community of 700 people is turning to nuclear power. But Galena's plant would be far different from other U.S. commercial nuclear power plants -- at 10 megawatts, it would be downright tiny. City officials met recently with staff from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss licensing a plant being developed by Toshiba Corp. that could be a test case for providing cheap power to rural communities. "Some people believe nuclear is coming around again," said Marvin Yoder, Galena's city manager. The smallest U.S. commercial nuclear power plants are the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, 19 miles north of Omaha, Neb., and the Ginna Nuclear Plant, east of Rochester, N.Y. Both have electrical output of 470 megawatts, roughly 45 times larger than what Toshiba is contemplating, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. Joe Williams, an NRC senior project manager in the new reactors section, described the meeting with Galena officials as a get-acquainted session to hear about the city and lay out the formidable process for building a nuclear plant. Williams and Burnell stressed that the commission's role is not to discuss whether nuclear power is a viable alternative for rural America, but to ensure that reactors are safe. Few places are as rural in America as rural Alaska and options for low-cost power are few. Galena is 185 miles west of the nearest link to the nation's highway system. Diesel oil is shipped to residents on the Yukon and Tanana rivers. Like all of Interior Alaska, Galena experiences wild temperature extremes, from a summer high of 92 to a winter low of 64 below zero. "It's a little bit like people in Florida getting used to hurricanes," Yoder said. "Cars don't like to run. You hope the windows are insulated good. If they aren't, you feel the cold coming right through." A reactor would be a dramatic contrast with Galena's austere infrastructure. Its roads are gravel, and only a few homes are on a piped water and sewer system. Most have water delivered and sewage pumped out of holding tanks. Galena began considering nuclear power after determining that wind and solar power were impractical and that coal was too costly. After discussions with Toshiba, city officials concluded nuclear power would be the cleanest and least expensive alternative, lowering costs to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Toshiba officials said the small reactor would not be operational for five to 10 years. The actual reactor would be about 7 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter and would be near the bottom of a concrete tube about 60 feet below the ground. The reactor's fuel, which has not been specified, would stay encapsulated for 30 years, unlike fuel at a conventional reactor that is routinely replenished. Yoder expects an encased reactor, with few moving parts using a low-grade plutonium or other fuel that could not be reused for weapons, would be cheaper to operate and protect than a conventional reactor. By Dan Joling / Associated Press
An Industry Work Ethic Record? (1) Austin E. "Jack" Penn, utility executive; began working at Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. in 1920 at the age of 15, and retired in 1969 as chairman and chief executive officer; He is credited by BG&E with laying the ground work for construction of Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. Jack died on August 10, 1999 at the age of 94. (From Nuclear News, October 1999) (2) William Newby Electrical Maintenance Supervisor at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired Steam Electric Generating Station hired in with the company in 1941 as an electrician apprentice. Some 64 years later William is still reporting for work as usual on a daily basis. He will be 85 years old on October 27, 2005. (From TVA Spokesman Terry Johnson April 27, 2005)
The Largest fine ever levied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A subsidiary of the FirstEnergy Corp. said Thursday it is reviewing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's plan to fine it $4,500,000 for reactor head damage that led to a two-year shutdown of an Ohio nuclear plant. The FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., a division of Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy, said it would have no comment on the NRC's proposed penalty. FirstEnergy companies currently have more than 13,000 employees in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and first began selling electricity to Pittsburgh-area customers in 1997. The NRC said FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. restarted and operated the Davis-Besse plant in May 2000 without repairing a leak from the reactor vessel head. The leaking boric acid was found two years later during a routine inspection. The corrosion had eaten almost through a 6-inch-thick steel cap. FirstEnergy said it investigated the problem, replaced the reactor head and "made numerous staff changes." According to a release from FirstEnergy, the nuclear plant watchdog said the action it took "does not reflect the current performance of Davis-Besse and no further civil enforcement action is expected.. From the Pittsburgh Business Time April 19 ,2005
The longest continuous run of any generating unit in the United States was set at Ohio Edison’s W..H. Saminis Steam Electric Generating Plant on April 30, 2005 when its 180 Megawatt Unit 2 run exceeded the 819 days that was set a few weeks earlier at TVA’s Widows Creek Unit 3. The Saminis Plant,. located a Stratton, Ohio, has 7 coal-fired steam units. Ohio Edison is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corporation of Akron, Ohio. (From a FirstEnergy news release dated May 5, 2004) Nay 13m 205 Source:
A Nuclear Battery. Researchers with a grant from the National Science Foundation have developed a tiny, nuclear-powered battery. Although the new battery currently produces significantly less energy than conventional chemical batteries (like rechargeable ones found in mobile phones), it can produce more electricity than any other similar design, and the tritium that is used to provide the nuclear energy could power a device for decades. Although the researchers are developing safe battery shell as well as a leak-proof casing for the tritium, proposed uses for the battery are currently limited to remote or hard to reach devices like satellites, bridge sensors, or listening stations. From National Science Foundation, May 13, 2005 "
The World’s Largest Solar Power Plant. SunPower Corp., a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today announced that "SOLON N", Germany's largest solar photovoltaic module manufacturer, has opened Phase One of the world's largest solar electric plant in Bavaria near Arnstein, Germany. Solarpark Gut Erlasse is a 12 MW solar electric plant located in a working agricultural field and can serve the electricity needs of thousands of customers each year. From Business Wire. May 31, 2005
Roberta A. Kankus becomes the first woman ever licensed to be a commercial nuclear power plant operator in the United States. A nuclear engineer at Philadelphia Electric Co., Kankus was certified as a senior operator for the Company's Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on February 12. 1976..(From a Duke Power Company web page July 3, 3005)
Meter Readers becoming extinct? : Itron Inc. today announced a new contract with Progress Energy replace 2.7 million traditional electromechanical residential meters with Itron's CENTRON solid-state, high-accuracy electricity meters equipped with Itron's embedded automated meter reading (AMR) technology. Progress Energy, based in Raleigh, N.C., is one of the nation's 10 largest investor-owned electric utilities, serving customers in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina. The CENTRON digital meters are more accurate than electromechanical meters and difficult to tamper with, which is expected to reduce cases of energy theft. The new meters will be automatically read via radio signal, thereby eliminating manual data entry errors, the need to access the premise and greatly reducing or eliminating estimated and inaccurate bills. Installation of the system begins in Florida this month and in the Carolinas in September, with a two-year completion date. To meet that schedule, Itron will install an average of 7,000 meters each workday across Progress Energy's territories. Using Itron's vehicle-based mobile AMR technology, a single meter reader will be able to read 10,000 meters or more each day, compared to the current daily total of about 400 meters using manual meter reading methods . http://www.itron.com/
Women in Control For the first time ever at TVA (and perhaps internationally ) - the operators staffing one of the reactors at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant were all women. On August 13 ,2004 the crew on unit 1 consisted of Debbie Travis, Senior Reactor Operator and Reactor Operators Michelle Conner and Judy Self. Sequoyah, a Tennessee Valley Authority plant, has two 1150 megawatt units and is located near Chattanooga. From TVA Insider October-November 2004.
The Most Admired Electric Company in America. FORTUNE magazine in its annual report card on corporate reputation for the year 2004 ranked Exelon number one on the list of electric and gas utilities. Exelon is the parent company of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago and Philadelphia Electric
The Ultimate in Generating Equipment and Personnel Reliability .Both Byron reactors went from one refueling to the next without ever shutting down. Byron-I shut down for refueling on February 27, after having been in power operation for 502 consecutive days, ever since the end of the previous refueling. Byron-2 also went breaker-to-breaker in its last completed cycle, running for 532 days straight until it refueled in March 2004. The two Exelon Nuclear pressurized water reactors are sited near Byron, Ill.; Unit I is rated at 1 187 MWe, and Unit 2 at 1155 Mwe. From Nuclear News Magazine dated April 2005
Kazakstan is the best deal I've seen since the Americans bought Manhattan for $24 dollars,'' said Adam Bergman, an analyst with Scott & Stringfellow of Richmond, VA.----speaking of the purchase by the AES Corporation, Arlington, VA., of 80% interest in the 4,000 megawatt Ekibastuz Power Station located in Kazakstan, USSR. For $3.7 million.
The largest power system control area in North America (one of 17) is the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) power pool, but it occupies less that 1-1/2 percent of the area of the United States. Its area comprises 11 electric utilities serving 48,700 square miles in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia and Washington D.C. Its generating capacity totals more than 54,000 megawatts. Thirty-two tie lines interconnect with the New York Power Pool, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., Allegheny Power System and Virginia Power. The bulk power system consists of nearly 6,600 miles of 500-kV, 345-kV and 230-kV facilities. The PJM control room, operated by Philadelphia Electric Company personnel, is located at Valley Forge, PA. (From the June 1993 issue of Electric Power and Light Magazine) Note: PJM recently announced they expect to spend over $1billion for upgrades to improve the reliability of the system. ( Energy Central Publications, December 2004)
Developers have agreed to build a small power plant in Minnesota that will generate pollution-free electricity from poultry manure. Homeland Renewable Energy LLC and PowerMinn 9090 LLC announced a $202 million deal Friday to build and operate a 55-megawatt plant in Benson, Minn., that will generate power burning 90% poultry litter, mainly turkey manure. The remaining 10% of the fuel will come from other sources of biomass.The company has signed supply contracts with several large poultry foods companies, the largest being the Jennie-O Turkey Inc. Northern States Power, a unit of (From Dow Jones & Company, Inc. - Dec 16, 2004
The World's most ambitious Research Facility--- next to the space station---is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER). It was launched in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and other world leaders. The $12 billion project (down from the original $20 billion estimate) is an international plan to build the world's first fusion reactor. Fusion is quite a different technology than fission. Rather than splitting atoms to create energy, fusion smacks them together at tremendous speeds. While radioactive tritium is the breeder (or starter) fuel for the reactor, according to fusion theory, once a reaction is achieved it should only require lithium and hydrogen to sustain it. Russia, Japan, the United States, Canada and Europe first agreed to undertake the project following a Geneva summit in 1985/86. The U.S. withdrew from the project in 1998, but made it clear that if progress were made in making site and construction decisions, it would consider re-joining the project..Three countries - Canada, Italy and Japan - are currently expressing an interest in hosting the massive project that will cost $6 billion to build over an eight-year period. The remaining $6 billion will be for operational costs during ITER's projected 20 year life span. The actual building of the first fusion power station however isn’t scheduled until at least the year 2030. (From Straight Goods, a Canadian Watchdog publication article by Susan Elston; Dr. Peter Barnard, Chairman of ITER, Canada and The ITER Fusion Project, www. iter.org. June 15, 2002 Update.: December 20, 2004 from Nuclear News.----Japan will not budge in talks to choose the site of a revolutionary nuclear reactor, a top negotiator said, accusing the European Union of causing the deadlock by its stubborn support for France over Japan. Talks among the six parties building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) have failed to decide who will host the project billed as a test bed for a safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future. While the United States and South Korea support Japan's offer to build ITER in Rokkasho-mura, a northern village near the Pacific Ocean, the EU, China and Russia back France's bid for the project in Cadarache, southern France. The EU, which hopes to reach a definitive accord by mid-2005, has threatened to press ahead with the construction of ITER in Cadarache if Japan did not agree to a deal soon.(From Nuclear News, December 20, 2004) top negotiator said, accusing the European Union of causing the deadlock by its stubborn support for France over Japan. Talks among the six parties building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) have failed to decide who will host the project billed as a test bed for a safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future. While the United States and South Korea support Japan's offer to build ITER in Rokkasho-mura, a northern village near the Pacific Ocean, the EU, China and Russia back France's bid for the project in Cadarache, southern France. The EU, which hopes to reach a definitive accord by mid-2005, has threatened to press ahead with the construction of ITER in Cadarache if Japan did not agree to a deal soon.(From Nuclear News, December 20, 2004)
The record for the longest continuous run of any fossil or nuclear generator in the United States was set at the Widows Creek Steam Plant by its Unit 3 at 8 a.m. on December 30, 2004. It rran for 707 days (and still running). (From the ;the Tennessee Valley Authority, January 8, 2005)
GAIL. H. MARCUS, who holds a doctor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is believed to be the first woman to receive a doctorate in nuclear engineering in the United States. She is a Deputy Director in one of the Department of Energy’s divisions relating to nuclear power. She is also a past president of the American Nuclear Society.
Oliver Kingsley, Tennessee Valley Authority’s Nuclear Senior Vice President, in the Chattanooga Times, March 17, 1997. When asked if he was proud of the recent record breaking achievements at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant: "We’re not sticking our chests out because this is a business where your lifetime reputation. can be lost in 15 minutes if you are not careful.
The World's Most Powerful Machine-----one capable of sustained production over a long period of time----is a steam driven electric generator owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. A generator a the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Decatur Alabama generated 17.8 billion kilowatt hours during a continuous run of 669 days ending on April 10, 2002. This record is not likely to be repeated soon. From TVA News May 2002. Revised May 27, 2004.
The world's most expensive hotel/casino got a world-class electric power backup system but when the time came it failed due to a simple mistake. The Bellagio Hotel and Casino, a leading Las Vegas resort that cost $1.6 billion has to clear $3 million a day just to break even.Inspired by the northern Italian village of Pelagic on scenic Lake Como, the 36-story hotel has more rooms (3005 with 75 elevators) than the village has residents. With walls of pastel yellow, the huge structure evinces Tuscan architectural styles. The villa motif continues indoors, where visitors encounter an opulent lobby, a village-like shopping promenade, gourmet eateries, designer boutiques, a botanical conservatory, and traveling exhibits of world-famous art. Out front is a man-made, 8.5-acre lake where more than 1000 fountains stage captivating shows with surges choreographed to music and lights. Humming all the while at the core of the complex is the elegant casino.The last thing such a business needs is a power outage. An integral part of the resort’s original design concept, the Bellagio's backup power system makes use of seven diesel generators capable of generating 12 megawatts at full power.After about five years of testing the backup system daily and more extensive tests monthly the system failed on a Sunday. April 11, 2004. The hotel with a "full house" of guests, stayed dark for three days. The mistake------The Nevada Power Company's feeder cables developed a fault shutting off the external source of power. The hotel's seven diesels started but immediately shut down because their feeders were mistakenly placed inside the same conduit containing the burned Nevada Power's wiring. As Robert Burns once said "The best-laid plans o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley, An' lea'e us nought. but grief an' pain. (From the Las Vegas Review Journal and other sources).
"Mattson, you son-of-a-bitch! How could you be spreading these rumors about this hydrogen bubble,"Victor Stello traveled to Harrisburg with Harold Denton on Friday, March 30, the day of Cronkite's somber broadcast. According to Mike Gray, the screenwriter of the film "The China Syndrome," Roger Mattson confronted Stello on Sunday as they waited for Carter to arrive and the two men engaged in a heated debate over the potential for the hydrogen bubble to explode during the March 28, 1979 accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant. At the time President Carter entered the plant, the legitimacy of the hydrogen bubble risk was still undetermined. On Sunday afternoon, while Carter was still there, Victor Stello found the proof he needed. They discovered that Mattson and his team of consultants had been using the wrong formula to determine the risk posed by the hydrogen bubble. Stello concluded that "hydrogen under pressure will prevent water from breaking apart into hydrogen and oxygen because it will tend to suppress the creation of more hydrogen. Without free oxygen, there can be no explosion. (Comments concerning the role of Victor Stello at TMI. He was an NRC official and late Principal Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Energy for Safety and Quality, from the book, American Experience-Meltdown at Three Mile Island (Note: Victor Stello Jr., 64, died Jan. 22 1999, at his home in Potomac, Md. And was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. He had cancer.)
Internet Access Using Power Transmission Lines. The new internet service promises lower prices and more convenience: Consumers can tap into the Internet anywhere they have an electrical outlet in their house. This service, announced on March 2, 2004 , comes from Cinergy Corp.,( Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company) and Current Communications, a private company. The technical issue has been how to get the internet signal through the transformers that step the power down from high voltages to the lines that run along the streets and into homes: Current Communications says it has now solved that problem The new modem is based on an industry standard called HomePlug, and costs about $30 wholesale. Cinergy will be handing out the modems to customers free of charge.( From an article in the March 2 , 2004 Wall Street Journal by Ken Brown)
The World’s Smallest Motor. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed the world's smallest motor. Now they're trying to figure out what to do with it. Using a gold rotor mounted atop a carbon nanotube shaft, the smallest synthetic motor ever made measures just 500 nanometers across-about 300 times smaller than the width of a human hair. It's small enough to be mounted onto a virus, and requires a scanning electron microscope for you to watch it in operation The shaft of the new motor is a single nanotube, only a few carbon atoms thick, about 5 to 10 nanometers What to do with the new nanomotor is another issue, and one that researchers have yet to figure out..Since the Berkeley nanomotor uses electric current, much like a conventional electric motor, it is expected to have extensive applications, (From Popular Mechanics Magazine December 2003)
A Mighty Tower of Power The Australians may have a simple answer for cheap electricity: First, build a 20,000-acre greenhouse to trap and heat air. Then build a colossal tower 1 km (.62 miles) tall in the middle of it. The warm air from the greenhouse will rise through the tower as it would through a chimney, turning turbines and generating enough electricity to power 200,000 Australian homes. It may sound like science fiction, but the project is on track to get approved by the Australian government. If completed, the $800 million solar tower will be the tallest man-made structure in the world’. EnviroMission, with Leighton Contractors Pty Ltd, advise the pre-feasibility stage of the Solar Tower project is complete and the project will now move towards full commercial development," the company recently said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange. (From Enviro Mission http://www.enviromission.com.au/top-menu1.htm– Revised March 12, 2004)
The first Russian floating nuclear power plant may be built as soon as in three years' time, said Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev, in December 2003 during a visit to Japan..The plant is to be erected on a barge near the town of Severodvinsk. The barge will be built either in Severodvinsk or at a St Petersburg shipyard. The same reactors as on nuclear-powered submarines will be installed at the plant. Their capacity will total 70 MW of electric power The cost of the project will total some 180m dollars. (From a Russian News Agency)
Old soldiers never die. They just fade away. Old retired nuclear reactors are like that too, but the fading may take somewhat longer than General MacArthur had in mind. Presently there are 27 power and experimental reactors in the retired category and at least 121 scrapped reactors from US Navy nuclear surface vessels and submarines. To protect the health and safety of the public the federal government provides the reactor owner with three strictly enforced options on how to safely dispose of these old reactor vessels: (1) Continue to guard the reactor as though it were in operation (2) "Cart it away" to a nuclear waste facility or (3) Entomb it. ( example. the Chernobyl reactor in Russia) Some of the problems that may face an owner when he elects the "cart away" option is described in this December 1, 2003 edition of the San Diego newspaper, The North County Times ----------
A. PHIL DIEHL Staff Writer SAN ONOFRE ---- Recent wet weather in North County and what amounts to a "stop" sign thousands of miles south at the Panama Canal may delay by at least eight months the shipment of part of a retired nuclear reactor down 8.4 miles of Camp Pendleton beach. Southern California Edison Co. plans to tow the old reactor vessel from the San Onofre nuclear power plant down old Highway 101 through San Onofre State Park, then along the beach to the Camp Pendleton harbor, which shares an entrance with Oceanside's harbor. Edison had planned to take the vessel, which held radioactive fuel for 24 years, by barge south to the Panama Canal, over to the Atlantic Ocean, then north to New Orleans. From there it would go by rail to Barnwell, S.C., for burial. But now it appears unlikely that Edison can meet a March 31 deadline to get the trip under way. The Panama Canal Authority has refused to allow the 950-ton package of concrete and steel to pass through the locks, Edison spokesman Ray Golden said. Canal regulations prohibit radioactive cargo greater than 150 tons. "We are still hoping," Golden said. "We can ask for a reconsideration." Edison has offered to ship large cranes along with the barge, Golden said. The cranes would be placed alongside the barge as it moves through the 50-mile passage in case of any trouble. Without access to the canal, Edison's load probably would have to go around South America. However, Golden said, details of that route are still to be worked out. Layers of concrete and steel shield the most hazardous parts of the vessel, which remain radioactive from the uranium fuel it held for 24 years. Golden said a person standing atop the shielded vessel would receive about as much radiation as they would from a dental X-ray, and that the radiation is undetectable 3 feet away. Environmentalists such as Mark Massara of the Sierra Club have called the transportation plan "laughable" and a threat to the environment. Last week, Coastal Commissioner Pedro Nava compared San Onofre's dilemma to "a guy who built a yacht in his basement ... and couldn't get it out the door." The California Coastal Commission, on a 6-5 vote Feb. 7 with Nava opposed, approved the beach portion of the trip with several conditions, including one that the vehicle carrying the vessel cross no water greater than 6 inches deep. Further complicating the plan, about 2 inches of rain fell along the San Diego County coast during the past week, increasing the depth of water in a river the reactor must cross during its trip down the beach on the first leg of the trip. Capt. Chris Logan, a Camp Pendleton spokesman, said Friday the Santa Margarita River was between 3 and 4 feet deep at the beach. The depth and width of the river's mouth vary greatly according to weather and sea conditions, Logan said. Waves constantly push sand into the mouth of the river, shifting its banks at the beach, though in wet weather it flows wide and deep. The North County portion of the reactor's trip must be completed by March 31 to avoid the nesting seasons of birds, including the snowy plover and California least tern. Should Edison miss the March 31 deadline, its next "window" for using the beach would be from Nov. 1 through March 31, 2004, Golden said. The reactor operated at San Onofre from 1968 to 1992, when Edison retired it to avoid costly upgrades required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Two other reactors at San Onofre, completed in 1983 and '84, continue to supply more than 15 percent of the electricity consumed in Southern California. ( >From U.S. Navy and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission .January 17, 2004)
Germany starts historic nuclear-power shutdown as first plant switches off
Germany began phasing out nuclear power Friday (November 14, 2003) when a 32-year-old power plant was switched off forever, the first step toward a historic shift in the energy supply of Europe's biggest economy. Eighteen remaining plants are to be closed over the next two decades under an accord between utilities and the government that bears the stamp of the environmentalist Greens party, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's junior partner. Germany's second-oldest nuclear plant at Stade in northern Germany, operated by the E.On Kernkraft utility, was powered down at about 8:30 a.m., local time, the Lower Saxony state environment ministry said. The shutdown was a key demand of the Greens, which grew out of Germany's strong anti-nuclear movement. Germany is the largest industrial country to willingly forgo nuclear power, which currently provides nearly one-third of the country's electricity From www.planetsave.com/The greatest power failure in history struck New York City and eight states and Ontario, Canada on August 14, 2003.
It was the worst blackout in the nation’s history, costing at least $6 billion in economic and other losses. About 50 million people were plunged into darkness when more than 263 power plants went down. Power was not fully restored for 13.5 hours.( From the Canadian Press)China buys equity in an Australian power company:
China Huaneng Group acquired 50 percent equity of OzGen., an organization that owns two advanced coal power plants, Millmerran and Callide C, both located in Queensland. The installed generation capacity of Millmerran and Callide C are 880 megawatts and 920 megawatts respectively. InterGen, the parent company of OzGen, is a joint venture between Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Bechtel Enterprises Holdings Inc. with its head office in Boston, the United States. The acquisition is Huaneng's maiden overseas investment. Huaneng concentrates on power generation as its core business, with its power plants having a total commissioned generation capacity of 31,000 megawatts. From - Xinhua News Agency, Dec 15, 2003The Worlds Fastest Train is powered by linear electric motors on levitated tracks
. The Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) and Japan's Railway Technical Research Institute successfully conducted a manned linear-motor train test in Yamanashi Prefecture on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 , setting the world's fastest railway speed.In a run on test tracks in Yamanashi Prefecture the train reached 581 kilometers per hour.(361 mph) The previous record speed of 579 kilometers per hour was recorded an on Nov. 19 during an unmanned test.JR Tokai aims to run its linear-motor trains at about 500 kilometers per hour if a high-speed service is started, and has been conducting high-speed tests to produce higher safety, reliability and durability. Members of the Yamanashi linear test center got on a three-carriage train on Tuesday to prove that the train could run safely with people on board."The linear (train) can run at 500 kilometers per hour with power to spare, and this confirms greater reliability as we head toward the opening of a commercial line," a JR Tokai representative said of the successful run. From The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Japan December 2, 2003Russia may back Japan as the site for a 570 billion yen ($5.3 billion) international project to build a nuclear fusion reactor, the Asahi newspaper said, citing an unidentified official at Japan's cabinet office. Officials from Japan's science and technology ministry have also lobbied their counterparts in China and South Korea for support, the paper said. Japan is competing with France, the European Union's candidate, as the site for the reactor. Ministers from member countries of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor will vote in Washington on Dec. 20, 2003 to choose the site for the project, the paper said. ITER's members are Canada, China, the EU, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. ( From Asahi News)
The first commercial reactor to produce tritium for military purposes On October 19, the Tennessee Valley Authority successfully completed the routine refueling outage at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant and returned the plant to service. During the outage, employees inserted 32 specially designed 12-foot "target" rods into four of the nearly 200 regular fuel assemblies in the plant's reactor core for a one-time confirmatory test for the Department of Energy. These rods, which contain no uranium or plutonium, are designed to replace a standard component of reactor fuel assemblies. During the plant's normal 18-month operating cycle, the test will produce about one ounce of tritium, none of which will be used in nuclear weapons. At the end of the fuel cycle, the rods will be shipped by the Energy Department to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for disassembly and examination. From U.S. Department of Energy release dated October 20, 1997
Three Mile Island Unit 1 Reactor set a Pressurized Water Reactor world record of 680 days
of continuous operation on October 18, 2003. This record broke its own world record that it set on September 10, 1999 after it ran for 668 days without shutting down. Unit 1 reactor is the sister to Unit 2 that became infamous on March 28, 1979 for America's worst commercial nuclear accident. The Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant is now owned and operated by AmerGen Energy Company, a joint venture between the Chicago based Exelon Corporation and British Energy. >From York Daily Record, October 30, 2003World’s Cheapest Electricity
? Tajikistan will supply 300 million kWh of electricity from its largest hydroelectric power station to Russia in 2003. Mr. Karim Niyozov, the deputy chairman of the company, said Tajikistan is eighth place in the world in the reserves of water and power resources, which are 527 billion kWh per annum" But most importantly the prime cost of one kWh of electricity generation is 0.4 cents, which is the lowest price in the world. (Tajikistan is an independent republic about the size of Illinois located in Central Asia with China on the East and Afghanistan on the South) Posted by Rough Rider on August 24, 2003 and Russian news agency ITAR-TASSThe privately owned, south Texas electric company, Sharyland Utilities, L.P., plans to build the first commercial power line linking the Texas and Mexico power grids.. The 150 megawatt, high voltage direct current (DC) tie line will be the first of its kind to support both emergency power and growing commercial business activity in Texas and Mexico. The tie line will allow two-way electricity transfers and will tie together two completely independent power grids. Previous lines only allowed for one-way transfers. The estimated cost of construction is $36 million.( From The Monitor, McAllen, Texas, November 6, 2003
The year 2002 was the fourth straight year that nuclear energy was the low-cost leader for baseload production of electricity. Production costs--which encompass fuel plus operations and maintenance at a plant--averaged 1.71 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) at the 103 nuclear power plants in 31 states. Of these 103 reactors, Duke Power Company's Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2 had the lowest operations and maintenance cost. of 1.13 cents per kilowatt hour. Nuclear power production costs were lower than coal-fired power plants, 1.85 cents per kWh; natural gas plants, 4.06 cents per kWh; and oil-fired plants, 4.41 cents per kWh. (Power Engineering Magazine August 2003 and the Charlotte Business Journal)
Even before World War II, the U.S. Navy was eyeing nuclear energy as a power source for long-range submarines. After the war, the Air Force, too, focused on a nuclear-powered dream machine: a bomber capable of remaining aloft for weeks at a stretch. In 1949 the AEC authorized the Oak Ridge National laboratory (ORNL) to design its reactor power plant. The nuclear plane posed two formidable challenges, could a reactor manage to loft a plane laden with bombs, crew, and--mainly--itself and its shielding? And given the impractical weight of conventional shielding--7 feet of concrete--could the crew survive the radiation exposure? To study the shielding problem, two reactors were built. Beginning in 1950, samples of various shielding materials and thickness were bombarded with radiation in ORNL's new Bulk Shielding Reactor. To explore the airborne reactor's shielding design when aloft and removed from neutrons reflected by Earth, ORNL built an unshielded reactor and hoisted it, by cables slung between steel towers, to heights of 200 feet or more. For propulsion, ORNL engineers adopted a novel design: a high-temperature reactor fueled by molten uranium salts. A 1-megawatt model made a 100-hour test run in 1954, witnessed by Captain Hyman Rickover, General James Doolittle, and Admiral Lewis Strauss, head of the AEC. Next step: a full-scale, 60-megawatt reactor.. ``It was called a fireball,''`and it was. It was to run red hot.'' Before the full-scale reactor could be built, the nuclear plane--freighted with technical, financial, and political baggage--was grounded in favor of ballistic missiles. ``Fortunately, it was never completed''. ``The nuclear aircraft was a big, difficult, complex system that presented unacceptable hazards to friend as well as foe.'' ``All we had to do was get it into the air over enemy territory''. ``They'd dare not shoot it down.'' The AEC scrapped the program in 1957. But the pie-in-the-sky idea laid down-to-earth foundations in reactor fuels, materials, computing, and other areas still being built on today. By Don Trauger, Physicist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and his book " Memoir of an Energy Pioneer" Also see http://www.ornl.gov/swords/bird-plane.html
China has set up the biggest power grid in the world with a combined installed power capacity of 140 million kilowatts, and a span of 4,600 kilometers across 14 provinces and municipalities, Beijing Daily reported. China's two important power grids, the North China Power Grid and Central China Power Grid, were successfully connected on Friday (September 19, 2003) for the first time, and the interconnected grid operated smoothly, according to the report. The interconnected power grid outstrips the Far East Power Grid in Russia in capacity, the newspaper said, citing sources from state-owned North China Power Group which runs the North China Power Grid. The sources said the connection of the two grids will help the power sector to optimize its electrical power resources, enable the two grids to support each other in distribution of electricity, and improve operation safety of the power grids. The two grids are capable of transmitting 200,000 to 600,000 kilowatts of electricity to each other. The connection was made possible thanks to a 210-km, 500-kv transmission line, which links the Xin'an Transformer Substation of the North China Grid in Handan City, Hebei Province in north China, with the Huojia Transformer Substation of the Central China Power Grid in Xinxiang City of Henan Province, central China. September 23, 2003 http://www.energycentral.com/sections/news/nw_article.cfm?id=4156506
During National Engineers Week, Year 2000, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced its take on the 20 engineering achievements that had the greatest impact on quality of life in the 20th century.. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon in 1969, presented the list of achievements at the National Press Club in Washington, DC and announced that out of the list of 20 the greatest achievement was: Electrification—the vast networks of electricity that power the developed world. The NAE noted that electrification, energizes virtually every aspect of modern society. It has literally lighted the world and impacted countless areas of daily life, including food production and processing, air conditioning and heating, refrigeration, entertainment, transportation, communication, health care, and computers, air conditioning and heating. (www.connectlive.com/events/engineersweek)
China's biggest nuclear power plant is near approval. Long held plans to establish China's largest nuclear power plant in the southern province of Guangdong may finally be going ahead The Yangjiang plant, estimated to cost about eight billion dollars, came a step closer realization as the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group signed an agreement on land use with the local government, the Nanfang Daily said. The six-generator, 6,000-megawatt facility will become China's fourth nuclear power plant and the third in Guangdong. It will help China reach an ambitious goal of having a nuclear capacity of 36,000 megawatt by the year 2020. China has said it hopes nuclear power will help reduce its heavy dependence on oil, much of which has to be imported from the volatile Middle East. The Iraq war made an already anxious China even more worried about its heavy dependence on energy from the Middle East, the source of 60% of its oil imports. Domestic companies and those from the Untied States, Japan and France have bid to design the plant. ( China Daily Newspaper, August 16, 2003 and Business Day South Africa, Aug 14, 2003.)
Europe’s largest coal fired power plant is the Drax Power Station located in North Yorkshire England. The plant has six 660 megawatt, pulverized coal-fired generating units. All six boilers have advanced flue gas deesulphurisation equipment. (From www.aesdrax.co.uk/ )
Crown Hill Farm’s Hydro-Electric Plant Juliette & Gunderman, farmers at McMinnville, Oregon have their own a unique 30KW micro- hydro electric plant that meets the needs of their 800 acre farm with about 25 percent to spare. Two small Pelton type turbines ( 12 inch and 9.5 inches in diameter) are connected to a small induction generator.They sell their excess generation to the local power company. (From Home Power Magazine. August & September 2003 and www.homepower.com
The Nuke That Never Was. The 1960s marked the "gold rush" in reactors, when General Electric, Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering, and Babcock-Wilcox scrambled to bring this technology to the marketplace. During this time Consolidated Edison of New York kicked over a political hornets' nest by applying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to build a large nuclear power plant in the Ravenswood district of Queens, opposite the United Nations Headquarters, a mile from the heart of New York City. Faced with such strong local opposition, however, Con Ed was eventually forced to withdraw its plan for the Ravenswood Nuclear Plant in late 1963. (From the book:: The Reader's Companion to American History )
The Nuke That That Was
–a little bit--. After a 20 year building period, an operating permit was issued by the NRC on April 21, 1989, for the 800 Megawatt Shoreham Nuclear Plant owned by the Long Island Lighting Company. The plant operated for the equivalent of 3 full-power days, but at that point the State of New York ordered the plant shutdown for fear the inhabitants of Long Island couldn't be evacuated in the event of a nuclear accident. Estimates of decommissioning costs are about $495-million excluding the more than $90 million paid to have the nuclear fuel removed from the site. The plant construction cost was $5 billion. Note: In a takeover bid New York State officials on July 16, 1997 approved a partial state takeover of the Long Island Lighting Co in a deal that, if it wins final approval, will be financed by the biggest municipal bond sale in history—some $7.3-billion. ( >From Electrical World, July 1994, and August 4, 1997 )The world’s first underwater turbine that uses tidal energy to generate electricity has been installed off the coast of north Devon, England. Engineers have installed the 300 kilowatt turbine three kilometers north-east of the fishing town of Lynmouth as part of a test to see if the idea is practical and economically viable. The structure is mounted on a pile driven into the seabed. The turbine is immersed in deep water where the ebb and flow of the tide spins the blades of the 16 meter-wide turbine at between 12 and 15 revolutions per minute, which is believed to be too slow to pose a hazard to fish and other marine wildlife yet fast enough to drive electricity generators turbine could be the prototypes for a national network of between 8,000 and 10,000 machines generating about 10 gigawatts of electricity. Unlike wind generators, which rely on the vagaries of the weather, tidal turbines have the advantage of producing highly predictable amounts of energy, although there will be about six or eight hours of each day when they fall idle as the tide turns.(From Steve Connor, Science Editor, Independent Digital (UK) Ltd 8 June 2003)
New Hay Burner: Southern Company is using switchgrass and other local grasses formed into small cubes to generate electricity. The grass cubes are being mixed with coal at Southern Company's Plant Mitchell, near Albany, Ga. Mitchell is owned and operated by the company's Georgia Power subsidiary.(From Energy Central Daily, June 3, 2003)
The Great Price Conspiracy. Late in September 1959 a senate committee started hearings that resulted in the indictment of the major US electrical equipment makers for fixing prices. The prices involved equipment ranging from big 500 megawatt turbine-generators, to power switchgear, transformers, power circuit breakers, steam condensers and navy and marine switchgear. All the major manufacturers were involved including General Electric, Westinghouse, Allis Chalmers, Federal Pacific Electric, ITE Circuit Breakers, AB Chance, Southern States Electric, and Cutler Hammer. All companies pleaded guilty or "no contest" and were given heavy fines. At least 50 individual high ranking executives pleaded guilty. In addition to individual fines, most were given prison sentences which were later suspended. However, 7 vice presidents and division general managers at Westinghouse, General Electric, Cutler Hammer and Clark Controller were sentenced to and served a term in prison of 60 days. The investigation started when TVA records revealed at least 47 American manufacturers, large and small, had been indulging in identical bidding on a wide variety of items during the preceding three years. Through a strange, undetermined process, ostensibly secret bids submitted by manufacturing companies almost always came out in a dead heat. Actually, this identical bidding pattern had been going on for years. This was true not only of TVA. Other federal, state and local agencies were confronted by the solid phalanx of identical or nearly identical "secret" bids. But TVA's decision to talk out loud about "identical bidding" carried special importance. For one thing, the Tennessee Valley Authority operates the biggest electrical generating capacity in the United States. Its purchases of electrical power equipment are huge. A second factor was the almost total absorption of Senator Estes Kefauver, Tennessee's senior Senator and Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust Activities.(From the book The Great Price Conspiracy, The story of the Anti-trust Violations in the Electric Industry, by John Herling. Robert B. Luce, Inc. Washington., Van Rees Press, 1962.
The World’s Fastest Submarine, at 45 knots submerged, was the Russian Alfa-Class, 45,000 HP, submarine built between 1972 and 1983 . The Alfa-class was remarkable for its time in three respects. First was its very high speed which was due to its 2 very powerful, liquid-metal-cooled nuclear reactors. Second, was its deep diving depth, which was made possible by the exceptional strength of its titanium hull. Finally, there was its very small crew of 31 men, the result of an exceptional degree of automation, although, uniquely, they were all officers. The hull was constructed of titanium, a material which combines lightness with great strength and resulted in the great diving depth(2,460ft crush depth), but this metal is very difficult to work and even the great Russian metallurgical expertise did not allow production of more than a few of these submarines The lead-bismuth liquid-metal reactors provided exceptional power density, giving these boats an underwater speed well in excess of 40kt. This was demonstrated when one ran under a NATO convoy during an exercise in the North Atlantic; it was a deliberate demonstration of its performance, and one which caused consternation in Western naval circles. The Alfa generated considerable noise at such a speed, which enabled surface warships to track its progress with great precision, but it also showed them that in war they would have no means of counteracting it. This led to urgent NATO programmes to develop much deeper diving and faster torpedos.(From the book Submarines of the World by David Miller, Salamander Books Ltd., London, England)
Calder Hall, the world's first industrial scale nuclear power station, was shutdown for decommissioning and defuelling on March 31, 2003 after almost 47 years of operation The station which consists of four Magnox reactors with a combined output of 194 MWe, is owned by British Nuclear Fuel plc (BNFL). It is located at Sellafield, formally Windscale, on the Irish Sea coast and alongside England's famous Lake District,(From Nuclear News, May 2003)
The U.S. Air Force is said to be studying the possibilities for developing nuclear powered unmanned aircraft. New Scientist reported that the USAF Research Laboratory has funded at least two feasibility studies on nuclear powered versions of the Northrop-Grumman Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. The Global Hawk is designed for high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial reconnaissance, and can conduct surveillance over an area the size of Illinois in 24 hours, according to Northrop-Grumman. Adding a nuclear reactor-based engine could extend the aircraft's flight time from 36 hours to months, The aircraft would be powered by a quantum nucleonic reactor, in which X rays trigger gamma-ray emission from radioactive hafnium-178. Researchers have been able to coax certain types of hafnium to release 60 times as much energy as they put in, which would be used to create a jet of hot air that propels the UAV. The quantum nucleonic reactor is considered safer to fly because it avoids some of the problems of nuclear fission. "It's radioactive, but as soon as you take away the X-ray power source its gamma-ray production is reduced dramatically. (From Nuclear News, May 2003)
The Best Performing Pressurized Heavy-Water Reactor in the world during the year 2002 was the Nuclear Power Company of India Ltd’s Kakrapar Unit 1. This reactor, among 32 reactors of the same type operating around the world, had a 98.4 percent capacity factor. Pickering Unit 7 in Canada came in second with a capacity factor of 98.1 percent. (From Nuclear News March 2003)
The Palo Verde Nuclear Plant was the number one power producer of any kind in the United States in the year 2002, It generated a national-record 30.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity during that period.. The station is a 3-unit PWR located at Wintersburg, Arizona and jointly owned by Arizona Public Service Company, Salt River Project, Southern California Edison Co., El Paso Electric of New Mexico, Southern California Public Power Authority and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (From Power Engineering Magazine April 23, 2003)
The countries with the highest percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power is France with 77 percent generated by 59 reactors and (2) Japan with 35 percent generated by 54 reactors. (From the Wall Street Journal February 19, 2003 and Nuclear News March 2003.)
The 103 nuclear generating units in the United States posted a record-setting year of high electricity production performance in 2002. The industry’s average capacity factor reached a record high for the fifth straight year, climbing to about 91.5 percent. (From the Nuclear Energy Institute, March 2003)
The U.S. military has developed a weapon that can permanently disable electrical and telecommunication systems. The new weapon -- known as the "e-bomb" for the high-velocity electromagnetic pulsed it discharges-- has yet to be tested in battle. Some who have studied the use of electromagnetic pulses in warfare say that a cheap version of the weapon could be made for as little as $400.00. (From the Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2003)
The World's Largest Electric Power System is the Unified Electric System UES) of Russia. It has a generating capacity of 151,750 megawatts and employs 681,475 people. Founded in 1920, this Soviet power grid once stretched into East-bloc satellite states and was controlled from Moscow. Almost all the former USSR is still linked to the grid. Its present assets is valued at $40.15 billion, including 684 conventional power plants, 68 nuclear generating units, and 1.5 million miles of cable connecting 69 regional power systems. Unified Electric has been a joint stock company since 1992 with 52% of the stock remaining in the hands of the Russian Government. In February 2003, Moscow announced that one of its most ambitious economic reforms should finally get the go ahead to dismantle the world's largest power company and create a free market in electricity. The plan splits the power giant into a state-controlled firm responsible for transmitting electricity and 10 privately owned competing companies that will generate power and trade it on a new wholesale market. This will eventually lead to the lifting of rigid state controls on electricity prices, more than a decade after Moscow freed prices for most other goods. Critics fear the reform will lead to nationwide power shortages in a country where winter temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. State Ministers will have the ultimate say over when the wholesale electricity market will be deregulated. Then, for three years after liberalization, generating companies will have to deliver up to 35% of their output under long term contracts to the residential sector and state organizations. The government says it will continue subsidizing electricity prices for the poor until at least 2008. (From the Wall Street Joumal, Februay 10, 1994; January 17, 1998 and February 13, 2003.)
A Tennessee company called Nuclear Fuel Services Inc is the primary supplier of fuel for the U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. For nearly half a century this company has been an innovator of nuclear fuel materials in a variety of enrichments. Its patented "downblending" technology helps to convert surplus material from the Cold War into useful low-enriched uranium to power commercial reactors. NFS recently announced the construction of new facilities at its Erwin site to convert U.S. stockpiles of defense related highly enriched surplus nuclear materials into low grade enriched uranium to fuel commercial nuclear power plants. In partnership with Framatome ANP, the material will be loaded into fuel rods and assemblies and provided to the Tennessee Valley Authority. The new project is expected to become operational in 2004. NFS is the largest employer in Unicoi County. (From the Oak Ridger, Oak Ridge, Tn. dated 02/14/2000 and Framatome ANP Press Room dated 08114/2002.. NFS, 021172003, and The Erwin Record.).
An electric airplane with two motors, called the Dragon Eye, is the first small unmanned aerial vehicle that can be stored in a soldier's backpack
, assembled in the field of battle, and sent on one-hour missions to beam back live pictures of enemy positions. It carries either a day-or night-vision camera in its nose. It can fly at an altitude of up to 500 feet. The battery and lens it carries can weigh a total of about a pound. It also can carry sensors to detect weather or poisonous gasses, or devices to relay communications. Final testing in progress at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Va. for use in the Iraq war. (From www. globalsecurAy.orglrrteAlsystemsldragon-eye.htm)The nuclear-electric powered US spacecraft twins, Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977, continue exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. In the 25th year after their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the Sun than Pluto is and approaching the boundary region -- the heliopause -- where the Sun's dominance of the environment ends and interstellar space begins. Voyager 1, more than twice as distant as Pluto, is farther from Earth (more than 8 billion miles as of November 2002) than any other human-made object and speeding outward at more than 38,000 miles per hour. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific information about their surroundings through NASA’s Deep Space Network. Power is provided to the spacecraft systems and instruments through the use of three radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The RTGs are assembled in tandem on a deployable boom hinged on an outrigger arrangement of struts attached to the basic structure. Each RTG unit, contained in a beryllium outer case, is 40.6 cm in diameter, 50.8 cm in length, and weighs 39 kg. The RTGs use a radioactive source (Plutonium-238 in the form of plutonium oxide, or PuO2, in this case) which, as it decays, gives off heat. A bi-metallic thermoelectric device is used to convert the heat to electric power for the spacecraft. Updated November 15, 2002 (From http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1977-084A & http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/ & Nuclear News, April 1999)
The sleek white train zipped noiselessly out of a futuristic station in Shanghai, carrying Chinese and German leaders - and hopes for a new era in railway technology. The world's first commercial magnetic-levitation train performed flawlessly on its maiden journey hitting 260 mph between Shanghai's gleaming financial district and the 3-yearold Pudong airport. A Germanbuilt high-tech marvel, the train can outrun a World War II fighter plane by riding above its track suspended by powerful opposing magnets. Its VIP passengers, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, said they hoped the 14-minute, 19-mile journey would build confidence in the expensive new technology. (From The Associated Press January 1, 2003)
Bull Run Plant Is Most Efficient in U.S
. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run Fossil Plant has been named the most energy-efficient coal-fired power plant in the nation by Electric Light and Power magazine. The plant has been ranked among the nations 10 most efficient plants by the utility industry magazine every year since 1996. The Bull Run plant, located near Oak Ridge, Tenn., won top honors for heat rate, a measure of the efficiency with which a plant turns fuel energy into electric energy. (TVA News, December 10, 2002.)Chernobyl tomb getting cap to seal it for 100 years
. Engineers are completing plans for what may be the largest movable structure ever built: a 20,000-ton steel shell to enclose Chernobyl Reactor 4. By next summer an international consortium led by Bechtel International Systems Corp., of San Francisco, will finish the conceptual design for a hangar shaped arch nearly 370 feet high - the height of a 35-story building - that would be slid into place along greased steel plates to cover the ruined remains in a snug, weather-tight shelter. Inside, robotic cranes and, where possible, live workers will then begin prying apart the wreckage, removing radioactive dust from twisted girders, storing pieces of radioactive core in shielded canisters and cutting old steel into manageable lengths. The whole job - design, construction and "stabilization" of the derelict reactor - is part of a fully funded 10-year plan set in motion in 1997 by the Group of seven industrialized nations. The $768 million project, including the shell, is scheduled for completion in 2007, according to officials involved with the project. The shelter is designed to keep out water and dust in for 100 years, or for as long as it takes the Ukrainian government to designate a permanent storage facility and dispose of more than 200 tons of uranium and nearly a ton of lethally radioactive plutonium that remain inside the ruins. Most of the fuel-containing material lies as a solid "lava" formed by the fusion of molten fuel, concrete, 30 tons of fuel dust and 2,000 tons of combustibles. In the basement, rainwater and fuel dust have mixed together in a dangerous radioactive "soup." Lethal chunks of the reactor core lie unseen in the rubble and in the earth alongside the building. More pieces of core were boxed and buried in a "cascade wall" built and bulldozed into place by Soviet workers in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. "We will need a lot of shielding," said Vincent Novak, director of the Nuclear Safety Department for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, overseers of the project. "If it weren't for the radioactivity, I could almost call the job `a piece of cake,' but the radiation makes it hugely complex and extremely difficult." (by Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post, January 3, 2003)The first woman ever to become plant manager of a nuclear power plant was Ms Donna Jacobs who was named plant manager at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Plant on June 9, 2001. Wolf Creek is a 1235 MWe Westinghouse pressurized water reactor in Burlington, Kansas. It is operated by the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation. The second female nuclear plant manager was Ms Susan Landahl who was named the manager of Exelon Nuclear's LaSalle Nuclear Plant in October, 2002. LaSalle is a pair of 1140-MWe General Electric boiling water reactors located in Seneca, Ill. (From Nuclear News, December 2002)
The Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority generated power over the last three years (1999-2001) at the lowest cost of any nuclear plant in the country. The average cost was 1.123 cents per kilowatt hour . The second and third runner up was the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant owned by the Southern Company at 1.208 cents and the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant owned by Dominion Virginia Power Company at 1.241 cents. (From the Chattanooga Times Free Press, December 3, 2002 and Nucleonics Week August 2002.)
For the three months ending September I, 2002, the Exelon Nuclear Generating Company’s 17 nuclear reactors operated at a 95.9 percent capacity factor. The reactors, at 10 sites in three states, produced more than 31 million MWh of electricity. Exelon's reactors in Illinois are Braidwood-I and -2, Byron-I and -2, Dresden-2 and -3, LaSalle County- I and -2, and Quad Cities- I and -2. In Pennsylvania, the units are Limerick- I and -2 and Peach Bottom-2 and -3. In addition, Exelon is a partner in AmerGen Energy Company, which operates the Clinton nuclear plant in Illinois, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, and Three Mile Island- I in Pennsylvania. TMI and the Braidwood and Byron nuclear units are pressurized water reactors. The others are boiling water reactors. (Nuclear News, November 2002)
An inactive limestone mine in northeastern Ohio is about to host the largest compressed-air electric generating storage facility in the world. When completed in 2003 at the small city of Norton, Ohio it will supply up to about 2,700 megawatts of power which will be enough generating capacity for about 675,000 homes The first phase will be a 300MW generator and eight more units will be added . The concept of compressed-air energy storage to help generate electricity is more than 30 years old. Two plants currently exist - an 11-year-old plant in McIntosh, Alabama, and a 23-year-old plant in Germany, both in caverns created by salt deposits. This mine in Ohio produced soda ash between 1943 and 1976. Synthetic soda ash from limestone is used in manufacturing glass. The 643 acre mine has 338 million cubic feet of space located 2,200 below the surface near Norton, Ohio."The mine cavity is 2,200 feet underground. If it were 50 feet, you'd have reason to be concerned," said Michael McGill, vice president for business development at Norton Energy Storage. Opponents noted that none of the supporters live on top of the mine, where air is to be compressed from between 1,600 and 800 pounds per square inch . The state approved the facility on May 21, and the company plans to have the first unit operational by the summer of 2003. Norton Energy Storage plans for power lines to deliver electricity to FirstEnergy power lines in Wadsworth, Ohio From the Environmental News Network, Thursday May 31, 2001
The world's largest pumped storage facility is the Chinese Guangzhou Pumped Storage Power Station at Lutian, Conghua, about 120 km from Guangzhou , China .. It has a total installed capacity of 2,400 MW using two sets of four 300MW reversible units operating at 500 RPM under a 1754 foot design head. The plant is linked with the power grid via two 500 KV outgoing circuits. This station is jointly owned by the Exxon Energy Corporation (51 per cent) and China Light and Power Company (49 per cent) (From China Water Resources and Hydropower Information Center , September 2002).
The Future "All Electric" Ship.” The Department of the Navy announced that the Destroyer (DD 21) will be its first class of ships designed and built during the 21st century to be powered by electric drive featuring an integrated power architecture. Underscoring the importance of using integrated power technologies, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig said, "Changes in propulsion systems fundamentally change the character and power of our forces. This has been shown by the movement from sail to steam or from propeller to jet engines or to nuclear power. Electric drive technology also represents great potential to improve the quality of life for embarked Sailors. It will free up large amounts of internal space, leaving room for habitability improvements, including the potential for a stateroom for every Sailor. The key design element of integrated power and electric drive is a single source generator for the requirements of all ship's power needs, including propulsion. One of the most attractive elements of the design is the resultant elimination of the drive shaft and reduction gears found in traditional Navy ships. Secretary Danzig said also, “This is a long sought and much desired goal. DD 21 will truly be the first “Smart Ship'' built from the keel up. Electric drive technology is integral to that. The warfighting and quality of life benefits that can be derived from this will mean that our Sailors can walk aboard a ship that is unlike any other they have known as this shift in propulsion reflects our wider efforts to change the very culture of the Navy. With DD 21, Sailors will live, work, and fight aboard a ship that values them like never before." (January 6, 2000. Special News Release , Navy Office of Information, 1200 Navy Pentagon, Washington , DC)
The (DD21) Destroyer program was replaced in 2002 by a technology development program known as the DDX. An industrial team led by Northrop Grumman was selected to design—but not necessarily build the DDX “family.” Under this plan the programs components would be applicable to a cruiser (CGX) and a destroyer (DDX), as well as small littoral combatant, the LCS. The destroyer Paul F. Foster (DD-964) will be modified to serve as a test platform for the DDX features. (From an article written by Norman Polmar in the August 2002 issue of U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings)
New invention improves USA power supply. With four kids and a pool, Deb Johns used to run her clothes dryer every night. But last month the fashion consultant installed a device that's even hotter--- a clothesline. After years of disuse and despite conjuring up an image of the nomadic Joad family in "The Grapes of Wrath," clotheslines are suddenly popping up in even the most exclusive ZIP Codes. Makers like Butts Manufacturing of California say demand has jumped as much as 40% in the last year, and Stacksandstacks, an Internet retailer, says sales of air-drying devices are soaring 60% to 80%-a month. Of course, unlike the cheap rope or metal versions of yore, these can get pretty pricey: One sleek chrome rack from Switzerland , designed for mounting on a laundry-room ceiling, goes for $75. Why would anyone want to make the drudgery of laundry last even longer? Cost, for one thing. Californians started buying clotheslines during last summer's electricity crisis. Then word spread about the scent of air-dried laundry, something most people hadn't smelled in years. "Once you sleep in a bed of outdoor-fresh sheets, you can't imagine linens from the dryer again," says Elena May, a Kentucky garden-center owner. (by Eileen White Read. Wall Street Journal July 2002)
The World's Largest Research Facility--- next to the space station---is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER). It was launched in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and other world leaders. The $12 billion project (down from the original $20 billion estimate) is an international plan to build the world's first fusion reactor. Fusion is quite a different technology than fission. Rather than splitting atoms to create energy, fusion smacks them together at tremendous speeds. While radioactive tritium is the breeder (or starter) fuel for the reactor, according to fusion theory, once a reaction is achieved it should only require lithium and hydrogen to sustain it. Russia, Japan, the United States, Canada and Europe first agreed to undertake the project following a Geneva summit in 1985/86. The U.S. withdrew from the project in 1998, but made it clear that if progress were made in making site and construction decisions, it would consider re-joining the project..Three countries - Canada, Italy and Japan - are currently expressing an interest in hosting the massive project that will cost $6 billion to build over an eight-year period. The remaining $6 billion will be for operational costs during ITER's projected 20 year life span. The actual building of the first fusion power station however isn’t scheduled until at least the year 2030. (From Straight Goods, a Canadian Watchdog publication article by Susan Elston; Dr. Peter Barnard, Chairman of ITER, Canada and The ITER Fusion Project, www. iter.org. June 15, 2002.
The North Central Power Study produced by a group of U.S. utility companies with help from the Department of the Interior proposes strip-mining of coal in the northern Great Plains, construction of huge mine-mouth generating plants ( 21 plants in Montana alone ), and a web of transmission lines to serve the Midwest and the Pacific Coast, but environmentalists fight plans to exploit the Fort Union Coal Formation that contains an estimated 1.3 trillion tons of soft coal, most of it low-sulfur coal. The Year was 1971. (From The People’s Chronology, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1979)
The Steinmetz Method
. A symbolic method of calculation that brought the complex field of alternating current within the reach of the average practicing engineer was announced in 1893 by Charles P. Steinmetz whose Yonkers, N.Y., employer Osterheid and Eickemeyer had been acquired by the new General Electric Company of Schenectady, N.Y. The Steinmetz method made the use of alternating current commercially feasible and was largely responsible for the quick introduction of apparatus using alternating current on a wide scale. (From The People’s Chronology, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1979)Former Italian utility monopoly Enel
is embracing competition with open arms. Enel provides electricity to nearly 30 million customers and has 54,000 MW of generating capacity. Deregulation laws require Enel to turn over municipal distribution networks to local governments and sell 25% of its capacity by the end of 2002; it has already transferred its transmission grid to an independent operator and sold 12,000 MW of capacity. The company is also responding by becoming a multi-utility. It plans to combine its two telecommunications units, Infostrada and majority-owned Wind. Enel also has gas and water distribution operations and international assets. The Italian government plans to sell its 68% stake in the company. (From www.hoovers.com/uk/co/capsulel)Britain’s Big Outboard Podded Ship. The Cunard Line’s new electrically propelled 150,000 ton, 1132 foot long luxury liner Queen Mary 2 will accommodate 2620 passengers and a crew of 1250. It is expected to be in service by the year 2003. This ship, without rudder or drive shafts, will be equipped with four podded outboard propulsion units, each containing a 40,000 horsepower alternating current motor. Two of the motor pods will be capable of turning a full 360 degrees and the other two will be fixed. The contract for the supply of the “MerMaid” podded propulsion units (the largest ever built) was awarded to the Rolls-Royce AB of Kristinehamn, Sweden on 10th of May 2001 for delivery in December 2002. Power will be supplied to the drive motors and the ships normal service switchboards by 4 Wartsila diesel engines built by a Finnish marine power systems supplier. The diesels will be supplemented by two gas turbines to be supplied by either the General Electric Company or Rolls-Royce. The four diesels and the two gas turbines will generate 118 megawatts or about 157,000 horsepower. The French-English company Alstom’s Chantiers de l’Alantique shipyard at Saint-Nazaire , France will build the new liner. (From the New Zealand National Maritime Museum web page http://www.nzmaritime.co.nz/qm2/specs.htm)
Superb Electric Railroading on the Union Pacific No one had intended to make railroad history on May 5, 1998 . It’s just that there was a shortage of locomotives in Phippsburg , Colorado . Instead of the usual five locomotives, only four were available to pull a 108-car coal train up Union Pacific Railroad’s steep Toponas grade on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains . What followed is, among locomotive builders, legendary. The locomotives were brand new General Electric behemoths with a twist: their traction motors operated on alternating current rather than direct current. Climbing the Toponas grade that day, the trains slowed to a barely perceptible six meters per minute. No self-respecting engineer would have tried such a foolhardy trick with conventional direct-current motors: wheels would have slipped, the train would have stalled, and the motors themselves would have been fried like an egg. But none of those things happened. Indeed, later investigation showed that the locomotives had been producing more pulling power than was thought possible at that speed. This feat of strength initiated a radical transformation of railroading—a revolution that stems directly from advances in information technology. Computer chips make AC motors practical by regulating the flow of power with a precision impossible by any other means. The chips monitor and control the DC entering the inverters and make sure that they deliver the proper amount of AC to the traction motors. This is no small feat: each inverter may require as many as 500 on-off commands per second to regulate the AC flow. And while 500 commands per second may seem unimpressive in a day of gigahertz chips, the proper comparison is not with other computers but with human beings. Imagine a train engineer trying to make 500 changes in throttle position every second. AC motors are more robust than their DC cousins. They’ve been put through brutal tests that demanded maximum possible power production, sometimes for days on end. Those tests went far beyond anything the worst railroad environment could produce, and the motors never came close to overheating, according to Michael E. Iden, Union Pacific’s general director of car and locomotive engineering. As long as the equipment is operating properly, AC motors “really should never burn out,” Iden says. Many railroads are even using AC locomotive power—instead of air brakes—to hold trains stationary on heavy grades, Iden says. This technique, which avoids the time-consuming process of pumping off air brakes, would fry a DC motor in minutes. (From MIT’s Magazine of Innovative Technology Review, dated March 2002.)
This most advanced solid-state PowerChip switch on trial in New York can transfer up to 300 megawatts of power in microseconds from a bad to a good source for systems that require "clean power". The switching is fast enough to make the transfer invisible to highly sensitive equipment such as computers that use the new Smart Chip. Such loads would crash if exposed to excessive time lapses, spikes and surges generated by the opening and closing of mechanical switches. This single, gate turn-off thyristor type solid state switch, physically about 12 feet high, was installed recently by Siemens in a New York Power Authority substation near the city of Marcy, New York. . Present switches on the nations transmission lines are mechanical with a reliability of roughly 99.9%—that’s Three Nines–and good enough for refrigerators, etc---but advanced computer systems demand a reliability that starts at Six Nines, 99.9999%. Someday, using these solid state switches, the electric companies may be able to attain Eight Nines or 99.999999% reliability . "Such devices as this switch represent the first truly fundamental change in the hardware of power since Edison and Westinghouse" (From Mark Mills an Peter Huber, Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2001; A Smarter Power Grid , MIT Technology Magazine July /August 2001 and Power Report by Gilder Group Inaugural Issue 2001).
The World's First Hydroelectric Power Plant
began operation September 30, 1882 on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. The plant, later name the Appleton Edison Light Company, was initiated by Appleton paper manufacturer H.F. Rogers, who had been inspired by Thomas Edison's plans for an electricity-producing station. In New York. (From Library of Congress, America’s Library, December 2001.)The first NRC owned and operated training center used specifically to train nuclear power plant inspectors in the United States was established on Marlin Road in Chattanooga, TN in 1980. The center contains 4 full-scope control room simulators modeling the General Electric, Westinghouse , B&W and Combustion Engineering Company type reactors. (Letter from William D. Travers. Exec. Dir. For Operations to the NRC Commissioners dated October 7, 1999.)
The first full scale nuclear plant simulator in the United States was installed at the Commonwealth Edison Company Training Center, Morris Illinois in the 1970's, simulating the 800 MW Dresden 2 Nuclear Plant. The first full scale fossil steam plant simulator in the United States was installed at the Tennessee Valley Authority Training Center, Chattanooga, Tennessee in the mid 70's simulating the 1300 MW coal-fired Cumberland Steam Plant. The TVA training center also housed full scale simulators for its 1000MW Browns Ferry and Sequoyah Nuclear Plants.
The World's First Known Natural Reactor: In 1972 a discovery at the Oklo uranium mine in Gabon, Africa, revealed evidence that a natural nuclear "reactor" had "operated" there more than 1.5 billion years ago. Apparently, chain reaction had occurred in a rich deposit of uranium ore, and the radioactive waste that was produced over hundreds of thousands of years did not contaminate the area outside the mine. (From The American Nuclear Society News, September 2001)
Was Captain Nemo's submarine All-Electric? (Circa 1870) Jules Verne's Nautilus submarine engine runs on electricity generated from seawater. First Captain Nemo mines coal from the seabed; this is used to heat seawater to extract its sodium. Sodium and mercury are then placed in a type of battery called a Bunsen Pile, which generates the electricity that the Nautilus uses to power everything, to light the cabins, to make drinking water, to cook, to work the organs, and to pump air into the air reservoirs. (From the book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne, as retold by Ron Miller, DK Publishing Company NYC, 1998.)
The first major malfunction of a nuclear power plant happened at an experimental nuclear plant at Chalk River Canada on December 12, 1952 when four control rods were accidentally removed from the reactor.. The error led to a partial meltdown of the reactor's uranium core. A million gallons of radioactive water accumulated inside, but there were no accident-related injuries. (From Time Magazine, 1986.)
The only fatalities in the history of U.S. nuclear reactor operations occurred on January 3, 1961 at the U.S. Army's Idaho Falls SL-1 Reactor. The crew was starting this small experimental reactor (to be used as a portable steam heat facility for arctic operations) when a young officer climbed to the top of the reactor, leaned over and pulled on a reactor control rod as he had often done before to keep it from binding. But this time it came up too fast, making the reactor prompt critical. An explosion occurred in which the top of the reactor blew off and the reactor control rod blasted skyward impaling the officer to the ceiling. Two other men were also killed. There was a long delay before the bodies could be recovered because of the high radiation level in the building. Lead was placed in the coffins of the three men during the funeral to offer protection until the bodies could be buried under 8 feet of soil. (From the book "The Angry Genie, One Man's Walk through the Nuclear Age" by Karl Z. Morgan Published University of Oklahoma Press 1999.)
The worst nuclear accident in history occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant at Pripyat, Ukraine on April 26, 1986. It happened on the 925 megawatt unit-4 as the operators were beginning a test to determine if the output from the main generator was sufficient to temporarily run the reactor cooling pumps for a few minutes as it was coasting to a stop should the reactor ever suddenly shut itself down. If the test was successful the extra time gained would allow the emergency diesel generators more time to pick up the emergency loads.
At 1:23 in the morning of April 26, 1986, this error of taking safety systems out of service, and other unfortunate mistakes, some of them design faults, caused the power in the 3200-megawatt reactor to surge a 100 fold in a short 4 seconds, much too fast for the operators to gain control. The reactor exploded causing all 1661 fuel channels to rupture and the control rods to be ejected. The top of the building blew off spewing highly radioactive materials over the countryside. About 135,00 people had to be evacuated from an 18 mile area of radius from the damaged reactor and 31 plant workers died.
The Russians immediately started a huge effort to contain the mass of radioactive material that was once a reactor. A massive entombment structure was built without human presence on the plant site. The work was done by robotics with television cameras mounted on construction cranes. The heavy walls of the structure utilized 410,000 cu. yds. of concrete to a height of 200 feet. It was designed to limit the radiation not to exceed 1 mrem per hour at the walls of the sarcophagus and to withstand earthquake and other natural disasters based on an annual probability of once in 10,000 years.
1994 Update: The remaining three sister units at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant continue in operation. 42 deaths are now probably attributable to the accident, far less than the previously estimated 8000. The increase of 11 over the previous figure of 31 that had been directly attributed to the explosion and acute radiation sickness among the firefighters, includes a helicopter pilot who died three years later, seven more firefighters who have died, and three fatal cases of thyroid cancer in children. From a paper, The Causes and Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, by Harold R. Denton, Director NRR, Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Delivered at the International Energy Seminar, The John Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, Washington D.C. on July 9, 1986. And Nuclear News Magazine dated December 1993.This information verified in Reed Irvin newspaper column June 25, 2000.
The worst nuclear plant accident in the U.S. happened at the Three Mile Island Plant on March 28, 1979 when one reactor lost its coolant because of equipment malfunctions and human error. The loss of coolant caused the radioactive fuel to overheat and led to a partial meltdown. Some radioactive material escaped, but a potentially major disaster was averted. Although no one is known to have died as a result of the accident, the hazard posed to local residents is still being debated. (From Time Magazine, 1986.)
Another notable nuclear power plant accident occurred at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Decatur Alabama. On March 22, 1975 while both 1000 MW reactors were operating at full power, a construction worker using a lighted candle to check for air leaks on the third reactor, then under construction, touched off a fire that damaged electrical cables connected to safety systems and allowed the Unit 1 reactor's cooling water to drop to a dangerous level. No radioactive material escaped into the atmosphere. This fire demonstrated that the fire-protection system and policies that TVA, and the NRC, considered adequate at the time of plant licensing were in reality, insufficient. In retrospect, the fire resulted directly from inadequate review of modification and construction procedures and an insufficient fire-protection system. Testing for air leaks was being performed without an approved written procedure. A work plan which had been approved by both construction and operating organizations was available but included no details on how leak testing was to be performed. The operating staff had been using approved detailed procedures for their operating and maintenance functions, but these procedures were not applied to the construction activities in the area of an operating unit. An old established technology for leak testing was being used without considering the ramifications of its use for a new application. Thus a leak-testing device (a candle) was used in the wrong place (cable spreading room) at the wrong time (the cable penetration seal was not completed) resulting in about 12 million dollars' damage and many more millions in lost power production during the 17-month forced outage on two 1,000-megawatt units. This accident and the resulting corrective actions led to drastic changes throughout the nuclear power industry in the United States and most of the world where nuclear power is generated. (From a paper presented at the International Conference on World Nuclear Energy held on November 16, 1976, at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, DC. by Jack Calhoun, TVA, and coauthor Dr. Giovanni Naschi, Italian National Nuclear Energy, Rome)
Probably the worst fossil-fueled power generating plant accident in the world happened at the Caracas Electricity Company Plant about 20 miles from the city of Caracas, Venezuela, on December 19, 1982. The fire began when a storage tank containing 80,000 barrels of fuel oil caught fire while being discharged. The fire later spread to other tanks causing them to explode. A total of 128 people were killed including 40 members of the Caracas Fire Department. The fire left half of this capital city without power. (From the Caracas El Nacional Newspaper and The New York Times, December 21, 1982)
The world record for the longest continuous run of any type generating unit was at a station owned by Commonwealth Edison of Chicago. The Commonwealth Edison Indiana Stateline Generating Station Unit 1 was retired in 1977 after operating for over 22 years without a shutdown. This unit was the largest unit in the world for more than twenty five years. It had a capacity of 208 megawatts. It was put on-line at 8:58 PM on December 19, 1929 and was taken out of service at 11:13 PM on June 30, 1952. This record acknowledges an operating time of 8,229 days, 2 hours and 15 minutes. (The following information was obtained in a telephone conversation with Mr Ralph Patterson, Commonwealth Edison, on June 27, 1989: The station had 6 boilers on headers and other piping arrangements that allowed either of the unit's two low pre