Paducah Shuts Down

Paducah is the western Kentucky site of a uranium enrichment plant that was built for the Atomic Energy Commission and began operation in 1952. Union Carbide originally operated the plant for the AEC.  

The plant eventually was operated by the United States Enrichment Corporation, though the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), eventual successor to the AEC, owns it. 

The Paducah plant was the last operating gaseous diffusion enrichment plant.

USEC says it will wind down enrichment operations over the next month. 

Although some activities will continue into 2014, Paducah's run is coming to an end.

Old nuke plant cards

I'm spending a week on Cyprus so no chance to post stuff from my collection, but I thought I would share a link to the San Francisco Bay Post Card Club's site that has an archive of its past newsletters. The March 2006 issue has an article on nuclear power themed post cards and reproduces a few old gems, some of which I have not yet been able to find. Anti-nukes will cheer the commentary; pro-nukes will like the old cards.

Nuclear spring - geranium enriched!

My wife found this postcard in Paris - a new type of power plant using geranium rather than uranium enriched fuel.

This is a satirical card produced by the Swiss Plonk and Replonk - Hubert and Jacques Froidevaux.

SONGS for San Onofre

There's been a lot in the news over the past few months over steam generator problems at Units 2 and 3 of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in southern California. Back when those two units were going through the licensing process (they received operating licenses from the NRC in 1982), Unit 1 was operating at the site but attention turned to the robustness of the seismic design of the plant, particularly in light of the higher seismic design parameters being applied to Units 2 and 3.

SONGS Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1968, an early 3-loop Westinghouse PWR. The focus on the seismic issues for Unit 1 led to a campaign to shut the plant down by local advocacy groups. The Southern California Alliance for Survival distributed this broadside with the catchphrase "San Onofre Has Its Faults."

The four page paper cleverly included a petition to the NRC to shut down the plant. All the reader had to do was clip the petition and send it on to the NRC. The text invoked the NRC's rule for citizen petitions for enforcement action against licensees -- 10 CFR 2.206 -- and set out the minimal facts and basis necessary to request such action

As a junior attorney at the NRC in 1980, a large part of my work was in handling these petitions and advising the NRC technical staff on how to handle them.  We received over 1200 of these cut-out petitions. Following a meeting with Edison in May 1982, NRC staff determined that the licensee needed to demonstrate that Unit 1 met its licensed design basis before the plant, then in an outage, could be permitted to restart. Restart was authorized in 1984, and survived challenge in the court of appeals. 

SONGS 1 operated until 1992 and has been substantially dismantled.

Fukushima Chain Reaction

Today marks the second anniversary of the historic earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan and led to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant  As might be expected  the occasion is marked by protest against nuclear power . Over the weekend in Paris, a "human chain" to protest nuclear power in France was staged in Paris with 4,000 - 20,000 participants, depending on who was doing the counting. Here's a poster promoting the event, featuring the "Nuclear Power - No Thanks" logo.

While on a visit in early June 2011, just two months after the accident, I picked up the following broadside for another demonstration in Paris.

Big Rock Point - the little plant that could

Big Rock Point Plant, operated by Consumers Power Company (now Consumers Energy), sat at the northern tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan near the town of Charlevoix. It was named literally for a "big rock" (Kitchiossining in the Chippewa language) left by a retreating glacier on the shore of Lake Michigan.  It was the fifth power reactor reactor in the U.S. and the first in Michigan.

It was a small plant, too, only about 67 MWe capacity, an early General Electric boiling water reactor design. You see the artist's conception in the post card above and the plant under construction below.

The plant operated for 34 years, from 1963 until 1997, when for economic reasons it was shut down.

At the time of its shutdown it was the oldest operating plant in the U.S. The American Nuclear Society named it a Nuclear Historic Landmark in recognition of its role as an early nuclear generating plant and for its production of cobalt-60 used in medical applications.

After plant closure in 1997, the decommissioning process began and the plant was dismantled and the site restored with only a remaining dry storage facility for spent fuel remaining on the site by 2006. The licensee produced an interesting brochure depicting the history of the plant and the decommissioning process.

For such a small plant, there certainly were a lot of postcards produced depicting it, as well as other promotional material like matchbooks and buttons!

Surf's up in South Africa!

It's been gray and dreary in Paris for most of the last couple weeks, so thoughts have drifted toward warmer, sunnier climes, perhaps the southern hemisphere where summer is in full swing.  How about South Africa? These cards feature the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station - or Kernkragstasie in Afrikaans - on the Atlantic coast near the tip of South Africa, about 30 km north of Capetown. A windsurfer swings by the plant below.

The Koeberg plant is operated by Eskom. The two units came on line in 1984 and 1985. During the apartheid period in South Africa, the site was attacked while the units were under construction in 1982 on the anniversary of the formation of the African National Congress. The resulting damage set back operation by about 18 months.

The card above was posted with a stamp also picturing the plant.