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Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant is a nuclear power plant located in Monticello, Minnesota along the Mississippi River. The site, which began operating in 1971, has a single nuclear reactor (boiling water reactor) of the General Electric BWR-3 design generating 613 megawatts, but studies are ongoing to uprate it to 700 MWe. It is owned by Northern States Power Company (NSP), today a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, and is operated by Nuclear Management Company (NMC).
The reactor was licensed to operate until 2010, however on November 8, 2006, it was extended to operate until 2030.
In January of 2007, the plant experienced some issues that caused an unexpected shutdown. A 13 ton control box containing valves that control steam pressure fell. This box was located in the condenser room of the turbine building and the event caused the box to drop eight to twelve inches. Once the box had dropped, steam pressure into the main turbine dropped as well. Emergency response teams at the power station deemed that the event was likely caused by inadequate welds at the time of installation and fatigue due to vibrations over the life of the plant.
Construction of the on-site independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) pad began in June 2007. The target date for the completion of the pads is December 2007 with insertion of the first ten dry storage containers (holding spent fuel assemblies) into horizontal storage modules (HSMs) in mid-2008. Initially, 12 HSMs will be placed on the storage pad. Each HSM--a thick, reinforced, pre-cast concrete structure about the size of a single car garage--Each HSM has the capacity to hold 61 fuel bundles.
- Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant is at coordinates Coordinates:
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