Beaver Valley Power Station is a
nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...
on the
Ohio River
The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...
covering near
Shippingport, Pennsylvania, United States, roughly northwest of
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
. The plant is operated by
Vistra Corp and power is generated by two
Westinghouse pressurized water reactor
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan, India and Canada).
In a PWR, water is used both as ...
s. As of 2023, it is the fourth largest employer in
Beaver County.
Beaver Valley 1 was used as the reference design for the French nuclear plant in
Fessenheim.
In 2018, the previous owner
FirstEnergy
FirstEnergy Corp. is an electric utility headquartered in Akron, Ohio. It was established when Ohio Edison merged with Centerior Energy in 1997. Its subsidiaries and affiliates are involved in distributing, transmitting, and generating electrici ...
Solutions filed for bankruptcy and announced the plant would begin deactivation by 2021. However, upon emergence from bankruptcy in 2020 as new owner Energy Harbor, the shutdown of the plant was reversed largely due to then
Governor Tom Wolf's decision to join the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, pronounced "Reggie") is the first mandatory market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the United States. RGGI is a cooperative effort among the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, ...
. Energy Harbor and the power plant were acquired by Vistra Corp in 2024.
Surrounding population
The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the ...
defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of , concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne
radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of Radioactive decay, radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is uni ...
, and an ingestion pathway zone of about , concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.
The 2010 U.S. population within of Beaver Valley was 114,514, a decrease of 6.6 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 3,140,766, a decrease of 3.7 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Pittsburgh (27 miles away, located upriver from the station).
Seismic risk
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Beaver Valley was Reactor 1: 1 in 20,833; Reactor 2: 1 in 45,455, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.
Electricity production
See also
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Shippingport Reactor - Located adjacent to the Beaver Valley Power Station
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Energy in the United States
Energy in the United States is obtained from a diverse portfolio of sources, although the majority came from fossil fuels in 2023, as 38% of the nation's Energy development, energy originated from petroleum, 36% from natural gas, and 9% from c ...
**
Renewable energy in the United States
References
External links
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{{U.S. Nuclear Plants
Energy infrastructure completed in 1976
Energy infrastructure completed in 1987
Buildings and structures in Beaver County, Pennsylvania
Nuclear power plants in Pennsylvania
Nuclear power stations using pressurized water reactors
FirstEnergy
1976 establishments in Pennsylvania
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018