The Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit 3, also known as Waterford 3, 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 ...

located on a plot in Killona, Louisiana, in St. Charles Parish, about west of New Orleans.Waterford on US Nuclear Power Plants List
/ref> This plant has one Combustion Engineering two-loop

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 ...

. The plant has a maximum dependable capacity of 1,152

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

. The power station's main generator is rated at 1333.2 MVA at a 0.9 power factor (60 psi hydrogen pressure). In 2005, the plant was approved for a 8% (275 MWt) power uprate. The post-uprate nominal main generator output was rated at 1231 MW. The reactor has a dry ambient pressure containment building. On August 28, 2005, Waterford shut down due to

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

approaching and declared an unusual event, the least-serious of a four-level emergency classification scale. Shortly after Katrina, Waterford restarted and resumed normal operation. During the 2011 Mississippi River floods, the plant was shut down briefly after a refueling shutdown on April 6, but was restarted on May 12. The plant shut down on October 17, 2012, for steam-generator replacement. The plant returned to full power in the middle of January 2013. The plant shut down on August 28, 2021 in preparation for Hurricane Ida. On August 29, 2021 the plant declared an “unusual event″ — its lowest level of emergency — after the facility lost offsite electrical power.

Ownership

Waterford is operated by Entergy Nuclear and is owned by Entergy Louisiana, Inc.

Electricity production

Surrounding population

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission 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 Waterford was 75,538, an increase of 7.4 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 1,969,431, a decrease of 0.8 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include New Orleans (33 miles to city center).

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 Waterford was 1 in 50,000, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.

Notes

External links