Susquehanna Steam Electric Station

Nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station

Country| United States
Location| Salem Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Coordinates| 41°5′20″N 76°8′56″W﻿ / ﻿41.08889°N 76.14889°W﻿ / 41.08889; -76.14889
Status| Operational
Construction began| November 2, 1973 (1973-11-02)
Commission date| Unit 1: June 8, 1983
Unit 2: February 12, 1985
Construction cost| $7.983 billion (2007 USD)[1]
Owner(s)| Talen Energy (90%)
Allegheny Electric Cooperative (10%)
Operator(s)| Talen Energy
Nuclear power station
Reactor type| BWR
Reactor supplier| General Electric
Cooling towers| 2 × Natural Draft
Cooling source| Susquehanna River
Thermal capacity| 2 × 3952 MWth
Power generation
Units operational| 2 × 1350 MW
Make and model| BWR-4 (Mark 2)
Nameplate capacity| 2514 MW
Capacity factor| 94.50% (2017)
85.05% (lifetime)
Annual net output| 19,943 GWh (2021)
External links
Website| Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant
Commons| Related media on Commons

[edit on Wikidata]

The Susquehanna Steam Electric Station is a nuclear power station on the Susquehanna River in Salem Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

## Operations

[edit]

PPL operated the plant until June 2015 when Talen Energy was formed from PPL's competitive supply business. The plant has two General Electric boiling water reactors within a Mark II containment building[2] on a site of 1,075 acres (435 ha), with 1,130 employees working on site and another 180 employees in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg-based Allegheny Electric Cooperative purchased 10% of the plant in 1977.[3][4]

Susquehanna produces 63 gigawatt hours per day. It has been in operation since 1983. The prime builder was Bechtel Power Corporation of Reston, Virginia. In November 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended the operation licenses of the reactors for an additional 20 years.[5]

## Data Center

[edit]

Cumulus Data, a subsidiary of Talen Energy, is developing a data center directly connected to the power stations. On January 17, 2023, it completed the phase 1 construction.[6] On March 4, 2024, it was sold to Amazon Web Services for 650 million dollars.[7][8]

## Electricity Production

[edit]

Generation (MWh) of Susquehanna Steam Electric Station[9] Year  | Jan  | Feb  | Mar  | Apr  | May  | Jun  | Jul  | Aug  | Sep  | Oct  | Nov  | Dec  | Annual (Total)

|
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|
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|
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|

2001  | 1,641,381 | 1,482,806 | 1,050,655 | 909,095 | 1,533,526 | 1,568,380 | 1,626,269 | 1,618,389 | 1,586,322 | 1,639,836 | 1,593,926 | 1,614,081 | 17,864,666
2002  | 1,627,242 | 1,368,563 | 813,610 | 959,909 | 1,648,911 | 1,586,051 | 1,634,103 | 1,631,149 | 1,583,552 | 1,274,053 | 1,607,308 | 1,663,585 | 17,398,036
2003  | 1,640,809 | 1,422,792 | 976,200 | 1,022,446 | 1,649,299 | 1,575,937 | 1,652,085 | 1,643,323 | 1,387,214 | 1,667,531 | 1,625,346 | 1,696,767 | 17,959,749
2004  | 1,650,478 | 1,403,764 | 864,302 | 988,853 | 1,668,931 | 1,617,379 | 1,680,026 | 1,666,301 | 1,618,848 | 1,695,244 | 1,449,297 | 1,719,678 | 18,023,101
2005  | 1,723,149 | 1,381,611 | 1,038,859 | 1,483,961 | 1,685,803 | 1,468,806 | 1,640,526 | 1,657,191 | 1,616,810 | 1,603,341 | 1,239,475 | 1,724,827 | 18,264,359
2006  | 1,723,425 | 1,532,732 | 928,498 | 1,236,026 | 1,552,576 | 1,503,961 | 1,639,653 | 1,661,875 | 1,581,886 | 1,175,403 | 1,541,913 | 1,727,484 | 17,805,432
2007  | 1,724,278 | 1,557,034 | 909,886 | 1,163,118 | 1,703,662 | 1,623,539 | 1,676,569 | 1,669,359 | 1,629,479 | 1,181,577 | 1,667,967 | 1,731,434 | 18,237,902
2008  | 1,731,666 | 1,610,267 | 942,630 | 1,135,197 | 1,734,942 | 1,635,252 | 1,703,041 | 1,672,452 | 1,662,760 | 1,751,662 | 1,693,887 | 1,766,058 | 19,039,814
2009  | 1,771,827 | 1,602,695 | 1,726,689 | 1,004,345 | 1,188,205 | 1,689,774 | 1,756,807 | 1,745,430 | 1,694,390 | 1,783,800 | 1,739,475 | 1,783,220 | 19,486,657
2010  | 1,807,052 | 1,565,156 | 919,205 | 690,462 | 1,565,552 | 1,729,962 | 1,316,879 | 1,677,543 | 1,761,339 | 1,824,897 | 1,796,169 | 1,861,363 | 18,515,579
2011  | 1,728,725 | 1,682,644 | 1,590,450 | 1,028,381 | 445,235 | 86,601 | 1,610,334 | 1,700,558 | 1,816,715 | 1,904,803 | 1,844,903 | 1,924,377 | 17,363,726
2012  | 1,915,903 | 1,795,186 | 1,841,550 | 921,187 | 864,309 | 704,284 | 1,728,928 | 1,826,063 | 1,826,134 | 1,162,708 | 878,645 | 1,449,460 | 16,914,357
2013  | 1,913,584 | 1,726,984 | 1,912,078 | 1,276,158 | 225,721 | 1,141,016 | 1,741,591 | 1,869,464 | 1,455,597 | 1,894,580 | 1,819,764 | 1,922,526 | 18,899,063
2014  | 1,913,406 | 1,703,367 | 1,116,604 | 1,258,937 | 936,728 | 1,388,426 | 1,705,009 | 1,814,722 | 1,490,264 | 1,891,172 | 1,860,863 | 1,701,797 | 18,781,295
2015  | 1,928,439 | 1,735,532 | 1,954,556 | 1,215,948 | 1,063,232 | 1,807,193 | 1,870,327 | 1,868,367 | 1,797,288 | 1,884,454 | 1,564,364 | 1,901,560 | 20,591,260
2016  | 1,915,434 | 1,735,811 | 1,234,864 | 885,516 | 1,601,861 | 1,123,585 | 1,846,755 | 1,844,095 | 1,804,267 | 1,643,232 | 1,807,301 | 1,908,254 | 19,350,975
2017  | 1,910,531 | 1,665,417 | 1,032,548 | 1,494,551 | 1,878,682 | 1,724,092 | 1,844,050 | 1,858,879 | 1,732,211 | 1,872,981 | 1,844,843 | 1,893,780 | 20,752,565
2018  | 1,903,980 | 1,644,670 | 1,694,732 | 907,337 | 1,730,401 | 1,804,216 | 1,837,720 | 1,566,621 | 1,778,638 | 1,877,072 | 1,836,176 | 1,887,159 | 20,468,722
2019  | 1,879,592 | 1,625,064 | 1,493,473 | 1,156,300 | 1,863,184 | 1,803,796 | 1,852,517 | 1,867,551 | 1,796,823 | 1,884,813 | 1,831,458 | 1,864,436 | 20,919,007
2020  | 1,832,553 | 1,482,539 | 1,536,238 | 895,446 | 1,475,102 | 1,711,863 | 1,848,934 | 1,849,871 | 1,798,231 | 1,858,398 | 1,828,551 | 1,873,177 | 19,990,903
2021  | 1,826,498 | 1,553,674 | 1,403,996 | 1,062,730 | 1,864,787 | 1,794,454 | 1,638,047 | 1,854,408 | 1,808,079 | 1,644,610 | 1,819,233 | 1,673,030 | 19,943,546
2022  | 1,841,431 | 1,591,781 | 1,566,471 | 866,125 | 1,644,935 | 1,746,251 | 1,818,542 | 1,821,939 | 1,728,111 | 1,759,022 | 1,814,194 | 1,866,229 | 20,065,031
2023  | 1,713,699 | 1,629,401 | 1,337,612 | 997,065 | 1,724,610 | 1,683,485 | 1,702,201 | 1,734,624 | 1,627,409 | 1,740,751 | 1,364,045 | 1,746,058 | 19,000,960

## Abandoned plans for an adjacent power plant

[edit]

In 2008, PPL filed an application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build and operate a new nuclear plant under consideration near Berwick, Pennsylvania. The Bell Bend Nuclear Power Plant would be built near the company’s existing two-unit Susquehanna nuclear power plant. On August 30, 2016, Talen Energy formally requested the license application be withdrawn,[10] and the NRC officially accepted the application withdrawal on September 22, 2016,[11] officially cancelling the project. Unlike the existing two units, which are American-designed boiling water reactors, the plan called for the French-German EPR which is a pressurized water reactor. At 1.6 Gigawatt net electric nameplate capacity (1.66 GW in the case of Taishan nuclear power plant), the EPR is the nuclear power plant design with the highest per-reactor electric power output ever built.

## Incidents

[edit]

In the plant's first emergency, an electrical fire erupted at a switch box that controls the supply of cooling water to emergency systems. No injuries were reported following the 1982 incident.[12]

Roughly 10,000 gallons of mildly radioactive water spilled at the Station's Unit 1 turbine building after a gasket failed in the filtering system in 1985. No radiation was released from the building to the public, and no personnel were contaminated as a result of this incident.[13]

## Surrounding population

[edit]

One of the power plant's cooling towers from the north

The NRC defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[14]

The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Susquehanna was 54,686, an increase of 3.3 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 1,765,761, an increase of 5.5 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Wilkes-Barre (18 miles to city center) and the larger city, Scranton (33 miles to center city).[15]

## Seismic risk

[edit]

The NRC's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Susquehanna was 1 in 76,923, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[16][17]

## See also

[edit]

* Pennsylvania portal
* Energy portal
* Nuclear technology portal

* List of largest power stations in the United States

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "EIA - State Nuclear Profiles". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
2. ^ "U.S. boiling-water reactors with "Mark 1" and "Mark 2" containments". NRC. November 2, 2015. Retrieved January 6, 2016.
3. ^ "At a Glance". Pplweb.com. Retrieved 2011-03-24.
4. ^ "PPL Susquehanna Fact Sheet". Pplweb.com. Retrieved 2011-03-24.
5. ^ "Susquehanna gets 20 more years". World Nuclear News. World Nuclear Association (WNA). 25 November 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
6. ^ "Cumulus Data Completes Key Milestones in Construction of its Flagship Zero-Carbon Susquehanna Data Center Campus". Talen Energy Investors. January 17, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
7. ^ "Talen Energy Announces Sale of Zero-Carbon Data Center Campus". Talen Energy Investors. March 4, 2024. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
8. ^ "AWS acquires Talen's nuclear data center campus in Pennsylvania". Data Center Dynamics. March 4, 2024. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
9. ^ "Electricity Data Browser". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
10. ^ "Bell Bend Combined Operating License application withdrawal" (PDF). Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 30 August 2016. Retrieved 2017-12-19.
11. ^ "Bell Bend Combined Operating License application withdrawal acceptance" (PDF). Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 22 September 2016. Retrieved 2017-12-19.
12. ^ "Nuke plant has emergency". Reading Eagle. September 22, 1982. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
13. ^ "Radioactive water spills at nuke plant". Gainesville Sun. October 28, 1985. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
14. ^ "NRC: Emergency Planning Zones". United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
15. ^ "Nuclear neighbors: Population rises near US reactors". NBC News. 2011-04-14. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
16. ^ "What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk". NBC News. 2011-03-16. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
17. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-05-25. Retrieved 2017-05-05.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Susquehanna Steam Electric Station.

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