1st US Commercial Nuclear Reactor: “Atomic Power at Shippingport” ~ 1958 AEC-Westinghouse
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“Tour of the first commercial nuclear power plant.”
Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound.
Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied (the color was atrocious on this film, unsalvageable, so I removed it).
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. It was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA, about 25 miles (40 km) from Pittsburgh.
The reactor reached criticality on December 2, 1957, and remained in operation until October 1982. The first electrical power was produced on December 18, 1957 as engineers synchronized the plant with the distribution grid of Duquesne Light Company.
Shippingport was created and operated under the auspices of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, whose authority included a substantial role within the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Its design team was headed by Alvin Radkowsky.
Its final core was an experimental, light water moderated, thermal breeder reactor and is notable for its ability to transmute (inexpensive) Thorium 232 to Uranium 233 (the latter being the fissile material that fueled the reaction within the reactor core). The reactor was capable of an output of 60 MWe. The reactor was designed with two uses in mind: for powering military ships, and serving as a prototype for commercial electrical power generation. In 1977, it was converted to a Pressurized Light-Water Breeder Reactor (PLWBR). Over its 25-year life, the power plant operated for about 80,324 hours, producing about 7.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity…
Construction
In 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his Atoms for Peace speech to the United Nations. Commercial nuclear power generation was cornerstone of his plan. A proposal by Duquesne Light Company was accepted by Admiral Rickover and the plans for the Shippingport Atomic Power Station started.
Ground was broken on Labor Day, September 9, 1954. President Eisenhower remotely initiated the first scoop of dirt at the ceremony. The reactor first went critical at 4:30 AM on December 2, 1957. Sixteen days later, on December 18, the first electrical power was generated and full power was achieved on December 23, 1957, although the station remained in test mode. Eisenhower opened the Shippingport Atomic Power Station on May 26, 1958. The plant was built in 32 months at a cost of $72.5 million.
Cores
The Shippingport reactor was designed to accommodate different cores during its lifetime; three were used.
The first, installed in 1957, held 4 tons of natural uranium and 165 pounds of high-enriched uranium. Seven years later it was retired, after having produced almost 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.
The second core had increased generating capacity and instrumentation to measure performance. It began operating in 1965 and over the next nine years generated almost 3.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. In 1974 the turbine-generator suffered mechanical failure, causing the plant to be shut down.
The third and final core was a light water breeder, which began operating in August 1977 and after testing was brought to full power by the end of that year. It used pellets made of thorium dioxide and uranium-233 oxide; initially the U233 content of the pellets was 5-6% in the seed region, 1.5-3% in the blanket region and none in the reflector region. It operated at 236 MWt, generating 60 MWe and ultimately produced over 2.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. After five years the core was removed and found to contain nearly 1.4% more fissile material than when it was installed, demonstrating that breeding had occurred.
Decommissioning
On October 1, 1982, the reactor ceased operations after 25 years. Dismantlement of the facility began in September 1985. In December 1988, the 956-ton (870-T) reactor pressure vessel/neutron shield tank assembly was lifted out of the containment building and loaded onto land transportation equipment in preparation for removal from the site and shipment to a burial facility in Washington State. The site has been cleaned up and released for unrestricted use…
