Galena Nuclear Power Plant

The Galena Nuclear Power Plant was a proposed nuclear power plant to be constructed in the Yukon River village of Galena in the U.S. state of Alaska. If it had been built in the projected time frame, it would have been the first non-military nuclear power plant built in Alaska to be utilized for public utility generation.

In April 2008, Marvin Yoder, a consultant on the reactor, said that Toshiba was planning to make the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009, and that if approval had been given in 2010 or 2011, the reactor could have been operational by 2012 or 2013. The company was also developing a 50 megawatt (electric) version of the reactor.^[1]

The plan had been to build a 10-megawatt reactor that would have been buried underground, and fuel would have powered the reactor for 30 years. According to Dennis Witmer, an energy consultant with the UA Alaska Center for Energy and Power, the project was "effectively stalled." Toshiba never began the expensive process for approval that is required by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.^[2]

Notes

References

• Bradner, Tim (2004-12-26). "Galena opens the door to nuclear project". Alaska Journal of Commerce. Retrieved 2006-06-19. 
• "Nuclear Power for Galena". Atomic Insights. March 20, 2005. 
• Technical documents
• Information from KIYU radio