Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Station
Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant in April 2011
Official namePrairie Island Nuclear Generating Station, Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant
CountryUnited States
LocationRed Wing, Goodhue County, Minnesota
Coordinates44°37′18″N 92°37′59″W / 44.62167°N 92.63306°W / 44.62167; -92.63306
StatusOperational
Construction beganUnit 1: June 25, 1968
Unit 2: June 25, 1969
Commission dateUnit 1: December 16, 1973
Unit 2: December 21, 1974
Construction cost$993.3 million (2007 USD)[1]
Owner(s)Xcel Energy
Operator(s)Northern States Power Company
Nuclear power station
Reactor typePWR
Reactor supplierWestinghouse
Cooling towers4 × Mechanical Draft
Cooling sourceMississippi River
Thermal capacity2 × 1677 MWth
Power generation
Units operational1 × 522 MW
1 × 519 MW
Make and modelWH 2-loop (DRYAMB)
Nameplate capacity1041 MW
Capacity factor95.90% (2017)
86.75% (lifetime)
Annual net output9099 GWh (2021)
External links
WebsitePrairie Island Nuclear Generating Station
CommonsRelated media on Commons

The Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant is an electricity-generating facility located in Red Wing, Minnesota, along the Mississippi River, and adjacent to the Prairie Island Indian Community reservation.

The nuclear power plant, which began operating in 1973, has two nuclear reactors (pressurized water reactors) manufactured by Westinghouse that produce a total 1,076 megawatts of power. Units 1 and 2 are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to operate through 2033 and 2034, respectively. The plant is owned by Northern States Power Company (NSP), a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, and is operated by Xcel Energy.

Prairie Island is one of two nuclear power plants in Minnesota (the other being Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant in Monticello). Prairie Island has attracted controversy in the early 21st century for its operator Xcel Energy's decision to store nuclear waste in large steel casks on-site. As this area is a floodplain of the Mississippi, many opponents of the decision fear the risk of water contamination through breach of the casks during seasonal flooding of this important river. They opposed renewal of the federal license at the Prairie Island facility.

In April 2008, Xcel requested that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renew the licenses of both reactors, extending them for an additional twenty years. The license renewals were approved in June 2011.[2][3]

The company has also requested NRC approval to use a similar storage system at its Monticello plant, which is currently licensed through 2030.

In May 2006 repair workers at the plant were exposed to very low levels of radiation due to inhalation of radioactive iodine-131 (131I) gas. The gas leaked from the steam generators, which were opened for inspection. 131I gas is normally removed by means of a carbon-based filter; in this case the filter had developed a small leak. The NRC deemed this event to be of very low safety significance. It said that no overdose of radiation resulted in any of the workers.[4]

The winter net electrical generation is 560 MW (Unit 1) and 554 MW (Unit 2). The gross electrical generation for both units is 592 MW.[5]

Electricity Production

Generation (MWh) of Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Station[6]
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual (Total)
2001 618,437 389,471 812,451 768,863 501,550 676,953 765,082 390,035 626,635 805,604 745,222 812,402 7,912,705
2002 802,932 373,880 783,818 756,917 784,939 748,625 767,063 778,860 762,582 806,927 578,200 724,524 8,669,267
2003 806,522 732,916 800,615 684,367 783,901 750,041 775,166 767,157 509,328 634,237 781,912 811,156 8,837,318
2004 812,077 742,272 813,087 754,093 776,582 731,996 778,077 753,226 469,661 398,624 423,888 807,037 8,260,620
2005 803,697 587,802 725,050 533,350 395,669 605,329 773,229 779,765 752,870 809,297 783,285 810,958 8,360,301
2006 768,648 523,355 812,343 704,490 389,748 663,369 745,076 775,984 755,986 791,112 565,065 615,691 8,110,867
2007 810,954 732,049 677,891 688,004 594,354 745,714 775,685 779,896 742,574 815,304 787,799 760,507 8,910,731
2008 810,496 515,086 469,069 762,392 772,758 743,236 756,823 743,293 609,678 399,754 728,946 807,291 8,118,822
2009 807,196 726,201 805,405 762,882 680,521 745,867 779,578 774,487 506,146 399,117 457,420 806,141 8,250,961
2010 805,145 728,923 805,049 574,465 439,846 741,930 769,667 770,378 761,566 798,544 768,646 818,774 8,782,933
2011 818,468 739,817 815,576 757,785 372,204 597,462 748,386 783,362 774,064 586,553 794,267 814,303 8,602,247
2012 820,337 630,540 407,372 389,424 397,135 730,575 770,451 683,077 767,873 673,038 384,267 399,327 7,053,416
2013 740,979 739,154 815,212 779,072 754,238 701,865 705,139 707,944 569,678 403,634 395,787 401,441 7,714,143
2014 721,609 743,538 816,214 756,998 708,398 749,968 788,820 788,306 768,579 486,688 476,118 577,964 8,383,200
2015 750,900 577,036 498,893 421,236 653,048 631,448 786,848 790,719 770,421 610,077 393,458 490,627 7,374,711
2016 395,781 450,899 805,213 778,932 789,139 758,513 790,015 792,433 776,208 586,692 514,685 824,548 8,263,058
2017 800,052 746,308 814,592 712,816 721,001 734,256 788,068 796,150 730,330 571,144 504,490 825,524 8,744,731
2018 825,623 746,420 807,946 786,128 787,237 760,376 791,122 784,577 612,472 449,168 802,370 829,866 8,983,305
2019 830,379 749,984 826,877 767,210 796,204 768,510 794,271 792,739 709,597 469,769 803,828 830,604 9,139,972
2020 830,631 776,447 820,843 779,680 787,499 751,478 786,644 725,466 566,087 630,500 800,735 827,964 9,083,974
2021 829,359 748,821 826,536 788,422 791,957 758,411 812,448 786,454 708,566 415,370 802,809 830,760 9,099,913
2022 830,920 750,383 816,081 788,362 794,680 762,851 789,948 794,008 768,203 560,237 7,655,673
2023

Surrounding population

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone has a radius of 10 miles (16 km), and is related primarily to exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination. Secondly, an ingestion pathway zone with a radius of about 50 miles (80 km), is concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid by residents that could be contaminated by radioactivity.[7]

The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Prairie Island was 27,996, an increase of 4.6 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for MSNBC. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 2,945,237, an increase of 7.8 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Minneapolis (39 miles to city center) and St. Paul (32 miles to city center).[8]

Spent fuel storage

NSP had initially intended to send radioactive waste from this plant to a storage facility operated by the United States federal government, but no such site is yet open for use. (The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is under construction, but given strong opposition in the region, the Obama Administration no longer thought this was an option.)

In 1991, Xcel Energy had requested permission from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to eventually store waste in 48 dry casks on the Prairie Island site. Opposition by environmentalists and the neighboring Prairie Island tribe led the Minnesota Legislature to decrease the number of allowed casks to 17; this was sufficient to keep the plant operating through approximately 2003.[9]

When those casks filled, Xcel Energy requested that the limit be expanded beyond 17 casks. The legislature granted the request, but required the company to make greater use of renewable energy in generating power, such as wind power. In addition, it was required to pay the adjacent Prairie Island Indian Community up to $2.25 million per year to help with evacuation improvements, and the acquisition and development of new land for their reservation. In addition, this money was to help pay for a health study and emergency management activities by the small tribe.

Steam generator replacement

Operators at Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant began a refueling outage on Unit 2 at 12:01 a.m. 9/23/2013. In addition to refueling the reactor, an expanded workforce replaced the unit's two steam generators.[10] Unit 2 was expected to come back online within eight weeks; however, it did not resume operation until January 13, 2014. At 2 am on January 14, Unit 2 reached 100% power output.[11]

Seismic risk

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Prairie Island was 1 in 333,333, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[12][13]

Emergency shutdowns

Xcel Energy performed an emergency shutdown in late January 2015 of the Unit 1 reactor after a cloud of steam built up in the pressurized cooling system following a cooling-down process to replace a seal in one of the reactor cooling pumps. The plant returned to full power in February 2015.[14]

Unit 2 of the plant has been shut down due to an emergency on 5 March 2015, indicated by a fire alarm at 4:00 am CST. Xcel energy plant operators declared a “notification of an unusual event,” the lowest of four emergency classifications established by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[15]

Unit 2 shut down automatically December 17, 2015, due to a turbine problem, and the fire alarm went off at the time. Operators declared a "notification of unusual event".[16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "EIA - State Nuclear Profiles". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  2. ↑ "Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2 - License Renewal Application". Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  3. ↑ Karnowski, Steve (June 28, 2011). "Prairie Island nuclear plant licenses renewed". Associated Press. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  4. ↑ 4Q/2007 Inspection Findings - Prairie Island 2
  5. ↑ "PRAIRIE ISLAND NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT, UNITS 1 AND 2 AMENDMENT RE: MEASUREMENT UNCERTAINTY RECAPTURE POWER UPRATE" (PDF). Retrieved 2023-01-06.
  6. ↑ "Electricity Data Browser". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
  7. ↑ "Backgrounder on Emergency Preparedness at Nuclear Power Plants". Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  8. ↑ "Nuclear neighbors: Population rises near US reactors", Bill Dedman, NBC News, 14 April 2011; Accessed May 1, 2011.
  9. ↑ "Another Nuclear Rip-off: Unmasking Private Fuel Storage" (PDF). citizen.org. July 2001. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  10. ↑ "Prairie Island Unit 2 Begins Refueling Outage", News Release, Xcel Energy
  11. ↑ Shaffer, David (2014-01-15). "Prairie Island nuclear plant is back online". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  12. ↑ Bill Dedman, "What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk," NBC News, March 17, 2011 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42103936 Accessed April 19, 2011.
  13. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-05-25. Retrieved 2011-04-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ↑ "Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant 1 returns to full power" Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, FOX 28 News
  15. ↑ "Prairie Island Nuclear Plant unit shut down", CBS Local, Minnesota, 5 March 2015
  16. ↑ , The Public
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