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San Antonio Nuclear Generating Station

By: IC

On December 6, 1971, a feasibility study was created to come up with a

nuclear plant that was estimated to cost at around $974 million. The

group of people who initiated this move are the Houston Lighting & Power

Co.the City of Austin, the City of San Antonio (CPS Energy), and the

Central Power and Light Co. The result of the study seemed to get a

positive result because on the year 1973, they have initially chosen Bay

City as the location of the project. In the year 1976, construction for

this nuclear plant started.



In the year 1981, the construction was behind by four years compared to

their schedule and there were problems with the cost. The estimated

($974 million) amount turned out to be quite a small amount because it

turned out to cost at around $5 billion. The selected architect and

construction company, decided to re-schedule the completion of the

project to June 1989. However, the contractor decided to quit their post

as the construction company for this project. Because of the

contractor’s decision to quit, they received a lawsuit due to breach of

contract on December 26, 1981. The lawsuit was settled when the

contractor agreed to paid $750 million on May 30, 1985. It was on

February 1982 that Ebasco Constructors was hired as replacement.



On March 18, 1988, the first reactor unit reached initial criticality

and was able to operate on August 25 the same year. A little more than a

year after, unit two was able to reach initial criticality and became

operational on June 19, 1989. However, these two units encountered

several defects and were temporarily turned offline. The two units

underwent rehabilitation in its steam-driven auxiliary feed water pumps

on February 1993. It took more than a year to restore the two units’

service, as it was able to provide service on March 1994.



Today, this nuclear plant is known as the South Texas Nuclear Generating

Station or South Texas Project (STP). Located at 55 miles of the

southwest part of Bay City, Texas, this nuclear plant covers 12, 200

acre of land on the Colorado River. This was the first nuclear plant in

Texas. The two Westinghouse pressurized water reactor units were

included as the top 20-electricity generating nuclear units worldwide.

The first unit took the first position as the highest output capability

with 1,251 megawatts. The second unit comes in second place with 1,250

megawatts. CPS Energy owned by the city of San Antonio provides power

from these units to San Antonio real estate. CPS Energy owns 41% of the

South Texas Nuclear Generating Station.



STP has a unique design wherein it took full consideration of its

safety. Instead of having two fully independent emergency core cooling

systems and associated support systems in the two units, STP installed

three. However, this feature did not fully convince the nuclear safety

regulations during the licensing process of the nuclear plant.



There was a proposal to expand the South Texas Project. Last June 19,

2006, the NRG Energy submitted a letter of intent to the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission to build two 1358-MWe Advanced Boiling Water

Reactors to the site.

Article Source: Free Content Articles Directory

Randy Watson is a Texas Real Estate Agent <www.satxproperty.com/> that enjoys writing about all things good in and around San Antonio and throughout South Texas. Read other San Antonio Arts, News and Humanities <www.satxproperty.com/welcome/satxblog/humanities/> articles by Randy at the SATXBlog <www.satxproperty.com/welcome/satxblog/>

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