The Yellow Creek Nuclear Plant is a canceled

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

project near

Iuka, Mississippi Iuka is a city in and the county seat of Tishomingo County, Mississippi, United States. Its population was 3,028 at the 2010 census. Woodall Mountain, the highest point in Mississippi, is located just south of Iuka. History Iuka is built on t ...

. It was originally planned to have two 1,350-MW (output) reactors operated by the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...

(TVA). The steam turbine-generator sets were provided by General Electric. The reactors were

System 80 System 80 is a pressurized water reactor design by Combustion Engineering (which was subsequently bought by Asea Brown Boveri and eventually merged into the Westinghouse Electric Company). Three System 80 reactors were built at Palo Verde Nuclear ...

pressurized water reactors built by

Combustion Engineering Combustion Engineering (C-E) was a multi-national American-based engineering firm that developed nuclear steam supply power systems in the United States. Originally headquartered in New York City, C-E moved its corporate offices to Stamford, Connec ...

. Three similar reactors were installed at

Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station The Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona, in western Arizona. It is located about due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila River, which is dry save for the rainy seaso ...

near

Tonopah, Arizona Tonopah is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in western Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, west of downtown Phoenix off Interstate 10. The community is near the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the larg ...

Construction on the reactors began in 1978 but stopped in 1982 before the TVA officially canceled in the project in August 1984 due to dramatically rising construction costs and lower electricity demand. Following TVA's cancellation, the partially completed site with infrastructure already in place underwent reconstruction as a site for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

to build solid rocket motors. Construction was about 80% complete when

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

pulled funding on the site in 1993. The cancellation of this project led to a poor economy and high

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...

in the area. Today, some buildings remain on the site including what was to be a reactor, the accompanying turbine building, and a circular base for the plant's

cooling tower A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and ...

. The site is close to the

tripoint A tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints as of 2020. Nearly half are situated in rivers, l ...

of Mississippi,

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

and

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, on a peninsula surrounded by

Pickwick Lake Pickwick Lake is the reservoir created by Pickwick Landing Dam as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The lake stretches from Pickwick Landing Dam to Wilson Dam. It is one of the few lakes in the United States to be located in 3 different stat ...

. The site's namesake creek, whose original outlet comprised the western arm of the lake, was almost completely captured by the lake or channelized into the uppermost reach of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway by the time plant construction ceased.

References

External links

Cancelled Nuclear Units Ordered in the United States
{{US-powerstation-stub Cancelled nuclear power stations in the United States Buildings and structures in Tishomingo County, Mississippi Tennessee Valley Authority

See also

References

External links