Grand Gulf nuclear power station is a General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

 boiling water reactor

Boiling water reactor

The boiling water reactor is a type of light water 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 , also a type of light water nuclear reactor...

. It lies on a 2100 acres (8.5 km²) site near Port Gibson, Mississippi

Port Gibson, Mississippi

Port Gibson is a city in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,840 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Claiborne County.- History :...

. The site is wooded and contains two lakes. The plant has a 520-foot (158 m) cooling tower

Cooling tower

Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature or in the case of closed circuit dry cooling towers rely...

.

Grand Gulf is operated by Entergy Nuclear and owned jointly by System Energy Resources, Inc. (90%) and by South Mississippi Electric Power Association (10%).

Unit 3

On September 22, 2005 it was announced that Grand Gulf had been selected as the site for a GE ESBWR

Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor

The type of nuclear reactor formally known as the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor is a passively safe generation III+ reactor derived from the predecessor Simplified Boiling Water Reactor and the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor...

 reactor. For details, see Nuclear Power 2010 Program

Nuclear Power 2010 Program

The "Nuclear Power 2010 Program" was unveiled by the U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham on February 14, 2002 as one means towards addressing the expected need for new power plants...

. Next to the vacant, waiting Grand Gulf field is an unfinished concrete structure that was to be the containment structure for a twin to the existing unit. In December 1979, staggered by construction cost Entergy (then called Middle South Utilities) stopped work on this unit.

In 2007, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...

 (NRC) issued an Early Site Permit (ESP) to Grand Gulf.
In 2008, Entergy and NuStart submitted a Combined Construction and Operating License

Combined Construction and Operating License

The Combined Construction and Operating License replaced the previous Draft Regulatory Guide 1145 as the licensing process for new nuclear power plants in the United States...

 (COL) application for a potential new nuclear unit at the Grand Gulf.

Surrounding population

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...

defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16.1 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80.5 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.

The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16.1 km) of Grand Gulf was 6,572, a decrease of 18.6 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80.5 km) was 321,400, a decrease of 0.4 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Port Gibson (5 miles to city center), Vicksburg (25 miles).

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 Grand Gulf was 1 in 83,333, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.

Release of low levels of tritium into Mississippi River

After heavy rains in late April, 2011, workers were pumping standing water that had collected in the abandoned, never-completed Unit 2 turbine building into the Mississippi River. Detectors sounded alarms at the presence of tritium in the water, and the pumping was stopped, and the accidental release was reported to the Mississippi Health Department and to the NRC. As of the dates of the news reports, it was unknown both how much tritium had entered the river, and how the tritium had collected in the standing water, given that Unit 2 was not an operational reactor, had never been completed. It is unknown how much tritium entered the river, because samples were not taken at the time of the leak. The NRC is investigating to find the source of the leak.

Reactor data

The Grand Gulf Nuclear Generating Station consist of one operational reactor, two additional unit was cancelled.

Reactor unit	Reactor type	Capacity		Construction started	Electricity grid connection	Commercial operation	Shutdown
		Net	Gross
Grand Gulf-1	BWR-6	1251 MW	1333 MW	04.05.1974	20.10.1984	01.07.1985
Grand Gulf-2	BWR-6	1250 MW	1302 MW	04.05.1974	Cancelled construction on 01.12.1990
Grand Gulf-3	ESBWR	1520 MW	MW	Cancelled plan