Caorso Nuclear Power Plant was 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 ...

Caorso Caorso ( Piacentino: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Piacenza in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about northwest of Bologna and about east of Piacenza. Caorso borders the following municipalities: Caselle Landi, ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It featured a single

Boiling Water Reactor A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor (PWR). BWR are thermal neutro ...

, a BWR 4 with a Mark II-

Containment Containment was a Geopolitics, geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. The name was loosely related to the term ''Cordon sanitaire ...

from

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

, with an electrical net output of 860 MW, used low-enriched

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

as fuel, was moderated and cooled by normal light water. It operated from 1981 until 1990, when it was closed following the

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

of November 1987. It was by far the most modern and in terms of capacity biggest nuclear power plant to go online in Italy. The Italian

nuclear decommissioning Nuclear decommissioning is the process leading to the irreversible complete or partial closure of a nuclear facility, usually a nuclear reactor, with the ultimate aim at termination of the operating licence. The process usually runs according to ...

agency

SOGIN SOGIN (', the Nuclear Plant Management Company, which is also called Sogin) is an Italian state-owned enterprise responsible for nuclear decommissioning as well as management and disposal of radioactive waste produced by industrial, research and ...

started the process of decommissioning the plant in January 2014.

Gallery

File:Centrale nucleare di Caorso.jpg, Outside view File:Caorso fuel pool.jpg, The fuel pool File:Centrale nucleare di Caorso - Piscina Pila Nucleare.jpg, The fuel pool File:Caorso Reactor.jpg, The area above the reactor

External links

Nuclear power in Italy
at the WNA site.

References

Nuclear power stations using boiling water reactors Former nuclear power stations in Italy Energy infrastructure closed in the 1980s 1987 disestablishments in Italy {{nuclear-power-stub