Kintigh Generating Station
Encyclopedia
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-fired power plant
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....
located in Somerset, New York
Somerset, New York
Somerset is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 2,662 at the 2010 census. The town is believed to be named after Somerset, New Jersey, the source of some early settlers....
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The plant is owned by AES Corporation
AES Corporation
AES Corporation is a Fortune 500 company that generates and distributes electrical power. The company was founded on January 28, 1981, as Applied Energy Services by Roger Sant from the US Federal Energy Administration and Dennis Bakke from the Office of Management and Budget. AES Corporation is...
. Its only currently operating unit was launched into service in 1984. Coal is provided to the plant via the Somerset Railroad. The waste heat is dumped into Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...
, resulting in a warm-water plume
Plume (hydrodynamics)
In hydrodynamics, a plume is a column of one fluid or gas moving through another. Several effects control the motion of the fluid, including momentum, diffusion, and buoyancy...
visible on satellite images. The super tall smoke stack can be seen from across the lake more than 50 miles away from the shores in Pickering and Ajax Ontario in Durham Region, usually topped off with a plume of heat.
History
The Somerset Nuclear Power Plant was proposed by New York State Electric & Gas in 1974 as two General ElectricGeneral Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
1,200 MW units, but the project was canceled in 1975.
In 1975, NYSEG announced it was changing its construction plans because a geologic fault
Clarendon-Linden fault system
The Clarendon-Linden fault system is a major series of fault lines in western New York state, in the United States. It extends through Orleans, Genesee, Wyoming, and into Allegany counties and is responsible for much of the seismic activity in the region....
had been found 40 miles away in Attica
Attica (village), New York
Attica is a village in Wyoming County, New York in the USA. The population was 2,597 at the 2000 census. It is named after a region in Greece.The Village of Attica is on the northern border of Wyoming County...
. Extra retrofitting costs would have made a nuclear plant infeasible versus a reinforced coal plant. A 650 MW coal plant was built at the site and went into service in 1984 ahead of schedule and under budget.