Utilities Dig In To Make Nuclear Plants Work Harder After Complete Makeovers
Nuclear powers death knell has been sounded continually since the 1979 scare at Three Mile Island and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl but the operators of nuclear powerplants have stubbornly declined to participate in their own funerals. Instead, they steadily upgraded and uprated their plants and improved their capacity factors.
When the last new reactor in the U.S., 1,121-MW Watts Bar 1, entered service in 1996, the countrys nuclear-generation capacity hit its historic high of 100,784 MW. Since then, units totaling 3,348 MW have been retired, but the countrys nuclear capacity in 2004 was still 99,209 MW. Output actually has grown 17%, to 788.6 billion kWh in 2004, and the capacity factor has risen from 76.2% to 90.1%. These are not the vital signs of a dying industry.