Arkansas Nuclear One

Overview

coordinates	35.311°N, -93.231°W
country	United States
location	Clark Township, Pope County, near Russellville, Arkansas
status	O
construction began	Unit 1: October 1, 1968 Unit 2: December 6, 1968
commissioned	Unit 1: December 19, 1974 Unit 2: March 26, 1980
cost	$2.522 billion (2007 USD)‡R1R‡
owner	Entergy Arkansas
operator	Entergy Nuclear
np reactor type	PWR
np reactor supplier	Unit 1: Babcock & Wilcox Unit 2: Combustion Engineering
ps cooling source	Lake Dardanelle
ps cooling towers	1 × Natural Draft (Unit 2 only)
ps units operational	1 × 836 MW 1 × 988 MW
ps units manu model	Unit 1: B&W LLP (DRYAMB) Unit 2: CE 2-loop (DRYAMB)
ps thermal capacity	1 × 2568 MWth 1 × 3026 MWth
ps electrical capacity	1824
ps electrical cap fac	79.36% (2017) 80.75% (lifetime)
ps annual generation	13,555 GWh (2021)‡R2R‡
website	Arkansas Nuclear One

Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) is a two-unit pressurized water nuclear power plant located on Lake Dardanelle outside Russellville, Arkansas. It is owned by Entergy Arkansas and operated by Entergy Nuclear. It is the only nuclear power facility in Arkansas.[3] ANO has been in continuous operation for 50 years as of December 17, 2024.

Units

Both units were designed by Bechtel Power and are located on the Northeast Shore of Lake Dardanelle.[4] They employ a combined number of 950 personnel at ANO[5] and generate enough power to meet approximately 56% of the total energy demand of Entergy Arkansas’ 700,000 customers.

March 2013 incident

On March 31, 2013, an industrial accident at the facility killed one person and injured eight other workers, including four seriously.[21] The accident took place "in a non-radiation area, and there was no risk to public health and safety." According to Entergy, the old stator of Unit One's generator fell during an operation to replace it. The falling component ruptured a water pipe, causing water infiltration into the plant's switchgear, which knocked out power to all of Unit One and one train of Unit Two's electrical system, which was online at the time. The electrical failure caused an automatic shutdown of Unit Two. The plant's emergency generators started and restored power to the emergency systems of both units. Unit One was in a refueling outage.[22] Emergency diesel generators, water pumps and feed water were functioning following a loss of all off-site power on Unit One, according to the NRC event notification.[23] The plant was placed under an "unusual event classification", which is the lowest of four emergency classification levels for abnormal events designated by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates American civil nuclear installations. One plant worker died, and ten other injuries required offsite medical treatment.[24] The company released an official statement of condolence.[25] Entergy announced that they would immediately commence repairs to Unit Two and hope to have the unit back online within several weeks. Entergy also acknowledged that Unit One would be offline for an extended time while the company surveyed the damage and established a timeline for repairs.[26]

The cost of the repairs was estimated at $95–120M, not counting additional costs to replace lost electricity from the reactors being down for four months. Both units were repaired, and started up on August 7, 2013, capable of returning to full power.[27] During the recovery from the incident a specialist engineering company named Lowther-Rolton [28] assisted with the recovery of the existing Stator and performed a "Technical Audit" (also called a "third-party review") of the engineering for lifting and installation of the new Stator to ensure safety of operations.

Arkansas Nuclear One

Units

Unit One

Unit Two

Surrounding population

Seismic risk

March 2013 incident

December 2013 incident

Reactor Vessel Closure Head (RVCH) in News

Electricity production

See also

External links

References