The Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit 3, also known as Waterford 3, is a

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 ...

located on a plot in

Killona, Louisiana Killona is a census-designated place (CDP) in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 724 in 2020. On December 14, 2022, the town was hit by a destructive and deadly EF2 tornado that damaged or destroyed numerous structur ...

, in

St. Charles Parish St. Charles Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Charles) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, its population was 52,549. The parish seat is Hahnville and the most populous community is Luling. The parish was ...

, about west of New Orleans.Waterford on US Nuclear Power Plants List
/ref> This plant has one

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 ...

two-loop

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, 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 ...

. The plant has a maximum dependable capacity of 1,152

megawatts 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 Watt ...

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

. The power station's main generator is rated at 1333.2 MVA at a 0.9 power factor (60 psi hydrogen pressure). In 2005, the plant was approved for a 8% (275 MWt) power uprate. The post-uprate nominal main generator output was rated at 1231 MW. The reactor has a dry ambient pressure

containment building A containment building is a reinforced steel, concrete or lead structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radioactive steam or gas to a maximum pressure in the range of . The containment i ...

. On August 28, 2005, Waterford shut down due to

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

approaching and declared a
unusual event
(the least-serious of a four-level emergency classification scale). Shortly after Katrina, Waterford restarted and resumed normal operation. During the

2011 Mississippi River floods Major floods along the Mississippi River in April and May 2011 were among the largest and most damaging recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century, comparable in extent to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and Great Flood of 1993. In ...

, the plant was shut down briefly after a refueling shutdown on April 6, but was restarted on May 12. The plant shut down on October 17, 2012, for steam-generator replacement. The plant returned to full power in the middle of January 2013. The plant shut down on August 28, 2021 in preparation for

Hurricane Ida Hurricane Ida was a deadly and extremely destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 2021 that became the second-most damaging and intense hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. state of Louisiana on record, behind Hurricane Katrina in 200 ...

. On August 29, 2021 the plant declared an “unusual event″ — its lowest level of emergency — after the facility lost offsite electrical power.

Ownership

Waterford is operated by

Entergy Entergy Corporation is a Fortune 500 integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations in the Deep South of the United States. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and ge ...

Nuclear and is owned by Entergy Louisiana, Inc.

Electricity Production

Surrounding population

The

Nuclear Regulatory Commission The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began operat ...

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

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 Waterford was 75,538, an increase of 7.4 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 1,969,431, a decrease of 0.8 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include New Orleans (33 miles to city center).

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 Waterford was 1 in 50,000, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.

Notes

External links