I visited a nuclear plant!

I love field trips! I have found there is no substitute for experiential learning. And when doubt and fear are involved, seeing with your own eyes and talking to experts yourself is especially productive. I’ve now had a chance to do that with respect to a nuclear plant in my backyard. What did I learn? Read on. Keep in mind that this is not an article on nuclear physics! This is an article to show you pictures and inspire further learning.

Plant Vogtle

I live in Georgia. I have a nuclear plant in my "backyard". According to the Southern Company website, Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 will be the first new nuclear units built in the United States in more than three decades, using the Westinghouse AP1000 advanced pressurized water reactor technology. Below is an image of all nuclear sites in the U.S.

Once complete, the four Vogtle units, located outside of Augusta, will produce enough clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy to power 1 million Georgia homes and businesses.

The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant is jointly owned by Georgia Power (45.7%), Oglethorpe Power Corporation (30%), Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7%) and Dalton Utilities (1.6%). I wrote a piece on the high cost of these new reactors here.

Basic layout

I was accompanied on my expedition with another curious sustainability advocate, my friend Andria Smith . We felt extremely safe during our visit. We had amazing front row seats and left grateful for the experience.

In this photo, we are next to a cooling tower for the old reactors. You can see the dome shaped old reactor containment buildings in the background along with the cooling towers to the new reactors to the left of the domes.

Joel Leopard , our guide, will totally appreciate this… I busted a myth almost immediately… those concave (technically hyperboloid) shaped giant towers are NOT where any nuclear stuff happens! They are (extraordinarily engineered) cooling towers. ?You can watch this video to see what it looks like inside a general cooling tower here and you can learn about how they work here.

Basically, they just cool plain water and cause evaporation in the process.

Matching game... try to guess what all the main structures of the plant are (answers at the bottom or the story):

The reactor

According to nuclear 101 at Energy.Gov, the main job of a reactor is to house and control nuclear fission—a process where atoms split and release energy.

Uranium, in small ceramic pellets, are stacked together into sealed metal tubes called fuel rods. They are bundled together to form a fuel assembly.

A reactor core is typically made up of a couple hundred assemblies. Inside the reactor vessel, the fuel rods are immersed in water which acts as both a coolant and moderator. The moderator helps slow down the neutrons produced by fission to sustain the chain reaction. Control rods can then be inserted into the reactor core to reduce the reaction rate or withdrawn to increase it. The heat created by fission turns the water into steam, which spins a turbine to produce carbon-free electricity.

Below are images from the PowerPoint slides Joel reviewed with us that explain the energy and electricity creation process.

Comparison of nuclear vs. other sources

Renewable energy sounds great. However, it lacks the power density needed to meet the needs of the modern economy. Here is visual of how much space it takes to produce the same amount of energy from wind (1.7M acres) vs. solar (60 sq. miles, about half the size of the city of Atlanta) vs. trees (8.6M acres), vs. nuclear (2,000 acres).

Bottom line

In combination with viewing Oliver Stone’s new documentary, Nuclear Now, and independent reading, visiting Plant Vogtle helped me better understand the science, safety and logic of nuclear energy. ?The world needs more electricity to power our lives and improve economic freedom. I want that future to reduce the negative impact to humans. Nuclear energy is a significant part of the solution. My hope is that people learn more about energy to make more informed policy decisions.

Matching answers:

?Sources & further reading

Southern Company: https://www.southerncompany.com/innovation/vogtle-3-and-4.html#:~:text=Georgia%20Power's%20Plant%20Vogtle%20units,advanced%20pressurized%20water%20reactor%20technology.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc.html

Excellent book about energy:

Disclaimer: Sustainability Navigator is Elba Pareja-Gallagher’s personal ESG newsletter published every Monday. Views expressed are her own. Corrections and respectful feedback are always welcome.