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Omaha Public Power District shutting down Ft. Calhoun nuclear plant

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FyreWulff

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http://www.ketv.com/news/oppd-picks-decommissioning-method-ahead-of-fort-calhoun-vote/40047100

This is the one that got flooded by the river a while back (while it was already offline). The plant has been in various states of running or not running. It will cost over a billion dollars to shut it down.

The power utility said in a written statement Thursday that the board decided it was in the best financial interest of the utility and its customers to close the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station by the end of this year.

http://www.wowt.com/content/news/OPPD-board-votes-to-shut-down-Fort-Calhoun-station-383294471.html

Historically low gas prices and lower energy use as well as increasing regulatory and operational costs all played a role in the decision. The decommissioning process is expected to take several years, but OPPD said the health and environmental risks "are no greater than when the plant is offline for a routine refueling outage."
 
Not sure how to feel about this,good i guess? Sucks all those people will lose there jobs tho. I worked security there for a few years and the pay was great,hours really sucked tho.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Where is the rest of the power coming from? Surely not coal, right?

Coal for now, although OPPD struck a deal recently to build out a 400~ megawatt wind farm, and signed a deal to buy 200 MW a year from another one in Nebraska.

We're currently sitting at roughly 10% of our power coming from renewables at the moment. Most of which is apparently wind and landfill gas.

Ft Calhoun was 470ish MW on it's own.
 

FyreWulff

Member
That's pretty small for a nuclear plant. A few frame 7 gas turbines could replace it.

This is currently the smallest rated capacity among all operating commercial power reactors in North America, and as a single-unit plant, this also qualifies it as the smallest rated capacity nuclear power plant. OPPD's two Nebraska City coal-fired plants at 682 (opened 2009) and 649 (opened 1979) MW are both significantly larger.

Apparently, the smallest!
 
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