McGuire Nuclear Station
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The McGuire Nuclear Station is a nuclear power plant located about northwest of
Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
, on the state's largest lake, Lake Norman. It is a lake created in 1963 by Duke Power for the
Cowans Ford Hydroelectric Station Cowans Ford Hydroelectric Station is a hydroelectric power plant and dam located near Huntersville, North Carolina, approximately 20 miles north of Charlotte on Lake Norman. It is the largest conventional hydro station owned by Duke Energy, g ...
. The McGuire units use the lake's water for cooling. This plant has two Westinghouse
pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) i ...
s and has a capability to produce 2,250 
megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
s of net power, with a net generation of 17,514 
GW·h A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bi ...
in 2005. This represents 44% of the total nuclear power generation for the state of North Carolina.


Ownership

McGuire Nuclear Station is operated by
Duke Power Company Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Overview Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...
and owned by the
Duke Energy Corporation Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Overview Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...
. It is named for William McGuire, who served as president of Duke Power from 1959 to 1971.


License

The original operating licenses' dates of
expiration Expiration or expiration date may refer to: Expiration Expiration may refer to: *Death *Exhalation of breath, breathing out *Expiration (options), the legal termination of an option to take an action *Shelf life, or the time after which a product ...
were 2021-06-12 for Unit 1 and 2023-03-03 for Unit 2. In 2003, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the licenses for both reactors for an additional twenty years.


Surrounding population

The NRC defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of , concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of,
airborne Airborne or Airborn may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Airborne'' (1962 film), a 1962 American film directed by James Landis * ''Airborne'' (1993 film), a comedy–drama film * ''Airborne'' (1998 film), an action film sta ...
radioactive contamination Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirab ...
, and an ingestion pathway zone of about , concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity. The 2010 U.S. population within of McGuire was 199,869, an increase of 66.8 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 2,850,782, an increase of 23.3 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Charlotte (17 miles to city center).


Ice Condensers

The McGuire Nuclear Station uses ice condensers as part of its emergency containment systems. A nuclear plant ice condenser is a passive, static heat sink that relies on large quantities of ice to mitigate severe accidents. Ice condensers are designed to limit pressure in the event of an accidental steam release. This design allows smaller containment structures and reduced material requirements.


Seismic risk

The NRC's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at McGuire was 1 in 32,258, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.


Stator replacement project

During 2014 McGuire Nuclear Station powered down one of its units to undergo a routine refueling outage, critical to the operation of the plant. This outage was particularly significant because McGuire performed a major evolution – the replacement of a generator stator. The stator is part of the electric generator and is among the largest and heaviest components in the plant, weighing approximately 1.2 million pounds. The work was carried out by Siemens Energy Inc. The lifting contractor was Sarens who used a structural temporary lifting system to remove the existing Stator and install the new Stator. A specialist engineering company named Lowther-Rolton performed a "Technical Audit" of the lifting and installation engineering to ensure safety of operations. Lowther-Rolton were the original developers of the Technical Audit system for load movement operations.http://lowther-rolton.com


See also

*
List of largest power stations in the United States This article lists the largest electrical generating stations in the United States in terms of current installed electrical capacity. Non-renewable power stations are those that run on coal, fuel oils, nuclear, natural gas, oil shale and peat, w ...


References


External links


Official Site From Duke Energy
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Macguire Nuclear Station Energy infrastructure completed in 1981 Energy infrastructure completed in 1984 Buildings and structures in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Nuclear power plants in North Carolina Nuclear power stations using pressurized water reactors Duke Energy 1981 establishments in North Carolina