{"id":3550,"date":"2013-05-21T22:01:35","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T02:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=3550"},"modified":"2013-05-21T22:07:26","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T02:07:26","slug":"nuclear-reactor-percent-power-from-nrc-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/nuclear-reactor-percent-power-from-nrc-data.html","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear reactor percent power from NRC data"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nDo nuclear reactors really deliver dependable baseload capacity?\r\nI hear industry execs say 99.99% uptime.\r\nThe real average from seven years of NRC data for 104 reactors is 88.13%.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Vogtle<\/a>\r\nAccording to Power Reactor Status Reports<\/a>\r\nposted online by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,\r\nhere are the actual percent power percentages over time\r\nfor the 104 listed nuclear power reactors.\r\nThe timeframe is 31 March 2006 through today, 21 May 2013.\r\n(The NRC data appears to go back to 1999, but seven years\r\nis a good sample to start with.)\r\nThe computation for each reactor is the sum of the uptime\r\npercentages for each day divided by the number of days.\r\nThe total uptime is the sum of the reactor uptimes divided\r\nby the number of reactors.\r\nHere’s the list, sorted two ways:\r\n<\/p>\r\n
Alphabetical<\/caption>\r\n
92.94<\/td>Beaver Valley 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.23<\/td>Beaver Valley 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.31<\/td>Calvert Cliffs 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.82<\/td>Calvert Cliffs 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.32<\/td>FitzPatrick<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.21<\/td>Ginna<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.40<\/td>Hope Creek 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.64<\/td>Indian Point 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.58<\/td>Indian Point 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.63<\/td>Limerick 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.52<\/td>Limerick 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.61<\/td>Millstone 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.87<\/td>Millstone 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.89<\/td>Nine Mile Point 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.02<\/td>Nine Mile Point 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.70<\/td>Oyster Creek<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.78<\/td>Peach Bottom 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
95.06<\/td>Peach Bottom 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.96<\/td>Pilgrim 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.35<\/td>Salem 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.95<\/td>Salem 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.74<\/td>Seabrook 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
84.07<\/td>Susquehanna 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
85.47<\/td>Susquehanna 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.76<\/td>Three Mile Island 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.82<\/td>Vermont Yankee<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
73.40<\/td>Browns Ferry 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.48<\/td>Browns Ferry 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.34<\/td>Browns Ferry 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.66<\/td>Brunswick 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.03<\/td>Brunswick 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.48<\/td>Catawba 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.25<\/td>Catawba 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
45.73<\/td>Crystal River 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.01<\/td>Farley 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.30<\/td>Farley 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.76<\/td>Harris 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.81<\/td>Hatch 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.30<\/td>Hatch 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.66<\/td>McGuire 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.45<\/td>McGuire 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.10<\/td>North Anna 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.34<\/td>North Anna 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.13<\/td>Oconee 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.02<\/td>Oconee 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.11<\/td>Oconee 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.37<\/td>Robinson 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.53<\/td>Saint Lucie 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
79.01<\/td>Saint Lucie 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.94<\/td>Sequoyah 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.53<\/td>Sequoyah 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.35<\/td>Summer<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.04<\/td>Surry 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.02<\/td>Surry 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
81.15<\/td>Turkey Point 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.49<\/td>Turkey Point 4<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.61<\/td>Vogtle 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.51<\/td>Vogtle 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.36<\/td>Watts Bar 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.94<\/td>Braidwood 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.34<\/td>Braidwood 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.76<\/td>Byron 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.73<\/td>Byron 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.98<\/td>Clinton<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
72.10<\/td>D.C. Cook 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.71<\/td>D.C. Cook 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.48<\/td>Davis-Besse<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.15<\/td>Dresden 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.10<\/td>Dresden 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.54<\/td>Duane Arnold<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
79.30<\/td>Fermi 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.17<\/td>Kewaunee<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.40<\/td>La Salle 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.77<\/td>La Salle 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
85.28<\/td>Monticello<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.72<\/td>Palisades<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.90<\/td>Perry 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.37<\/td>Point Beach 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.39<\/td>Point Beach 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.47<\/td>Prairie Island 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.94<\/td>Prairie Island 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.12<\/td>Quad Cities 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.58<\/td>Quad Cities 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.33<\/td>Arkansas Nuclear 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.06<\/td>Arkansas Nuclear 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.61<\/td>Callaway<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.05<\/td>Columbia Generating Station<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.86<\/td>Comanche Peak 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.48<\/td>Comanche Peak 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.19<\/td>Cooper<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.37<\/td>Diablo Canyon 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.55<\/td>Diablo Canyon 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
61.42<\/td>Fort Calhoun<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.42<\/td>Grand Gulf 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.18<\/td>Palo Verde 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.87<\/td>Palo Verde 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
85.98<\/td>Palo Verde 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.12<\/td>River Bend 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
66.01<\/td>San Onofre 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
65.15<\/td>San Onofre 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.73<\/td>South Texas 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.71<\/td>South Texas 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.39<\/td>Waterford 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
82.89<\/td>Wolf Creek 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.13<\/td>All 104 reactors<\/td><\/tr>\r\n<\/table><\/td>
Percent power<\/caption>\r\n
95.06<\/td>Peach Bottom 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.77<\/td>La Salle 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.63<\/td>Limerick 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.48<\/td>Comanche Peak 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.40<\/td>La Salle 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.34<\/td>Braidwood 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.15<\/td>Dresden 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
94.10<\/td>Dresden 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.94<\/td>Braidwood 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.82<\/td>Calvert Cliffs 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.78<\/td>Peach Bottom 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.73<\/td>Byron 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.52<\/td>Limerick 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.31<\/td>Calvert Cliffs 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.21<\/td>Ginna<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
93.02<\/td>Oconee 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.94<\/td>Beaver Valley 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.86<\/td>Comanche Peak 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.76<\/td>Three Mile Island 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.76<\/td>Byron 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.64<\/td>Indian Point 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.58<\/td>Quad Cities 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.58<\/td>Indian Point 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.40<\/td>Hope Creek 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.12<\/td>Quad Cities 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.04<\/td>Surry 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
92.02<\/td>Nine Mile Point 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.98<\/td>Clinton<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.96<\/td>Pilgrim 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.89<\/td>Nine Mile Point 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.82<\/td>Vermont Yankee<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.76<\/td>Harris 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.73<\/td>South Texas 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.61<\/td>Vogtle 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.51<\/td>Vogtle 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.37<\/td>Diablo Canyon 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.35<\/td>Salem 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.32<\/td>FitzPatrick<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.30<\/td>Farley 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.25<\/td>Catawba 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.23<\/td>Beaver Valley 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.11<\/td>Oconee 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.06<\/td>Arkansas Nuclear 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.02<\/td>Surry 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
91.01<\/td>Farley 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.95<\/td>Salem 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.94<\/td>Sequoyah 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.87<\/td>Millstone 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.81<\/td>Hatch 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
90.33<\/td>Arkansas Nuclear 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.94<\/td>Prairie Island 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.71<\/td>D.C. Cook 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.70<\/td>Oyster Creek<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.66<\/td>McGuire 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.61<\/td>Callaway<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.54<\/td>Duane Arnold<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.53<\/td>Sequoyah 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.48<\/td>Catawba 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.45<\/td>McGuire 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.37<\/td>Point Beach 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.19<\/td>Cooper<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.17<\/td>Kewaunee<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
89.10<\/td>North Anna 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.66<\/td>Brunswick 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.61<\/td>Millstone 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.39<\/td>Waterford 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.39<\/td>Point Beach 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.35<\/td>Summer<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.87<\/td>Palo Verde 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.55<\/td>Diablo Canyon 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.47<\/td>Prairie Island 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.34<\/td>Browns Ferry 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.30<\/td>Hatch 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.13<\/td>Oconee 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
87.12<\/td>River Bend 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.74<\/td>Seabrook 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.72<\/td>Palisades<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.48<\/td>Browns Ferry 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.48<\/td>Davis-Besse<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.42<\/td>Grand Gulf 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.37<\/td>Robinson 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.36<\/td>Watts Bar 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.34<\/td>North Anna 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
86.03<\/td>Brunswick 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
85.98<\/td>Palo Verde 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
85.47<\/td>Susquehanna 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
85.28<\/td>Monticello<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
84.07<\/td>Susquehanna 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.90<\/td>Perry 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.71<\/td>South Texas 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.53<\/td>Saint Lucie 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.49<\/td>Turkey Point 4<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.18<\/td>Palo Verde 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
83.05<\/td>Columbia Generating Station<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
82.89<\/td>Wolf Creek 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
81.15<\/td>Turkey Point 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
79.30<\/td>Fermi 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
79.01<\/td>Saint Lucie 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
73.40<\/td>Browns Ferry 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
72.10<\/td>D.C. Cook 1<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
66.01<\/td>San Onofre 2<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
65.15<\/td>San Onofre 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
61.42<\/td>Fort Calhoun<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
45.73<\/td>Crystal River 3<\/td><\/tr>\r\n
88.13<\/td>All 104 reactors<\/td><\/tr>\r\n<\/table><\/td><\/tr><\/table>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Crystal<\/a>\r\nWorst of the lot is Crystal River 3, down since 2009,\r\nand \r\nDuke finally decided in February to close it for good<\/a>.\r\nFort Calhoun is next worst, down since 2011, and several times before that.\r\nBoth San Onofre nukes have been down since 2012, and multiple times before that.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Fort<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"San<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"San<\/a>\r\n

\r\nMaybe one could argue that it’s not fair to include reactors down for\r\nyears in an average of active reactors.\r\nSeems to me if it’s fair to charge Georgia Power customers for\r\nPlant Vogtle units 3 and 4,\r\nstill not delivering any power and\r\n\r\n19 months late and a billion over budget<\/a>,\r\nit’s fair to include reactors that are supposed to be active yet are shut down.\r\nIf big baseload is so great, why aren’t they working?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n\"Vogtle<\/a>\r\nBut we can go around that question altogether.\r\nLook at Georgia Power and Southern Company’s flagship reactors:\r\nVogtle 1 at 91.61% and Vogtle 2 at 91.51%.\r\nNow those aren’t bad uptimes.\r\nBut they aren’t the 99.99+% uptimes I hear industry execs claim.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Hatch<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"Hatch<\/a>\r\nLook at SO’s Hatch 1 at 90.81% and Hatch 2 at 87.30%.\r\nNot looking so good.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Farley<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"Farley<\/a>\r\nAnd next door in Alabama, Farley 1 shows 91.01% and Farley 2 at 91.30%.\r\nLike Vogtle, not bad, but no multiple sigmas for Farley.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Pilgrim<\/a>\r\nSo big baseload nuclear is not as good as its operators claim.\r\nEntergy\r\n\r\ncan’t even keep Pilgrim 1 running during a snowstorm,\r\nor keep the power on during the Super Bowl<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSure it takes more rated megawatts of solar power to produce as much\r\ncapacity as from nukes or coal or natural gas.\r\nBut\r\nsolar can be distributed so it doesn’t break all at once,\r\n\r\nand it generates most at peak load hours<\/a>,\r\nas Edison Electric Institute recently spelled out for power utilities.\r\nPlus\r\n\r\nsolar prices are dropping so rapidly your jaw may drop<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nSouthern Company and Georgia Power and Entergy and all the other\r\nbig baseload power companies can keep trying to sell their mainframes\r\nin a mobile phone world, but\r\n\r\nthe utilities that turn distributed solar power into an advantage\r\nfor them<\/a>\r\nwill win the Super Bowl of power generation.\r\nAnd the rest will have, ah, problems.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do nuclear reactors really deliver dependable baseload capacity? I hear industry execs say 99.99% uptime. The real average from seven years of NRC data for 104 reactors is 88.13%. According to Power Reactor Status Reports posted online by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, here are the actual percent power percentages over time for the 104 listed […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,18,104,23,334,24],"tags":[824,2500,1037,8704,663,8701,8708,8702,12,7,117,8737,118,8713,8714,108,709,6],"class_list":["post-3550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-georgia-power","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-san-onofre","category-solar","tag-baseload","tag-capacity","tag-distributed","tag-economy","tag-entergy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nrc","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-regulatory-commission","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-super-bowl","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Vg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3550"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4949,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3550\/revisions\/4949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}