Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station
From Freepedia
- "Palo Verde" redirects here. For the desert plant, see Palo verde.
The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, a nuclear power plant located in Wintersburg, Arizona, about 50 miles (80 km) west of central Phoenix, is currently the largest nuclear generation facility in the United States, producing over 30,000 gigawatthours of electricity annually to serve approximately 4 million people. Arizona Public Service holds the majority ownership of the station and operates the facility. Other partial owners include Salt River Project, El Paso Electric Co., Southern California Edison, Public Service Co. of New Mexico, Southern California Public Power Authority, and the Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power.
The facility is on 4,000 acres (16 km²) of land and consists of three Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors, each with a capacity of 1,270 megawatts. The plant is a major source of power for Phoenix and Southern California, serving 4 million people daily. The plant was fully operational by 1988, taking twelve years to build and costing $5.9 billion, eventually employing 2,500 people.
Palo Verde is the only nuclear energy facility in the world that uses treated sewage for cooling water. The plant receives effluent from the City of Phoenix, where it is treated in an 80 acre (324,000 m²) reservoir for use in the plant's cooling towers. Over 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000 m³) of this water are recycled each year.
