Zion Nuclear Power Station was the third dual-reactor nuclear power plant in the Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) network and served Chicago and the northern quarter of Illinois. The plant was built in 1973, and the first unit started producing power in December, 1973. The second unit came online in September 1974. This power generating station is located on 257 acres (104 ha) of Lake Michigan shoreline, in the city of Zion, Lake County, Illinois. It is approximately 40 direct-line miles north of Chicago, Illinois and 42 miles (68 km) south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Zion Nuclear Power Station was retired on February 13, 1998. The plant had not been in operation since February 1997, after a control-room operator inserted the control rods too far during a shut down of Reactor 1 and then withdrew the control rods without following procedures or obtaining supervisory permission. Reactor 2 was already shut down for refueling at the time of the incident. ComEd concluded that the plant could not produce competitively priced power because it would have cost $435 million to order steam generators which would not pay for themselves before the plant's operating license expired in 2013.
All nuclear fuel was removed permanently from the reactor vessel and placed in the plant's on-site spent fuel pool by March 9, 1998. Plans were to keep the facility in long-term safe storage (SAFSTOR) until Unit 2's operating license expires on November 14, 2013. Decontamination and dismantlement were to begin after this date. The estimated date for closure was December 31, 2026.
On August 23, 2010, it was announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the transfer of Exelon's (ComEd's parent company) license to Energy Solutions of Salt Lake City. The company will begin the 10 year process of dismantling the site, and will eventually haul away pieces of the plant to its property in Utah. During the dismantling process, spent fuel will be transferred from the spent fuel pool into dry casks and placed into a newly constructed Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI). The cost of these operations is expected to reach approximately 1 billion dollars. After this is complete, Exelon will resume responsibility of the site, including the ISFSI.
The power plant is the tallest structure in Lake County.
| Unit 1 | Unit 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating status | Permanently closed | Permanently closed |
| Reactor type | Pressurized water | Pressurized water |
| Reactor manufacturer | Westinghouse | Westinghouse |
| Generation capacity | 1,040 megawatts | 1,040 megawatts |
| Operational date | June 1973 | December 1973 |
| Closure date | January 1998 | January 1998 |
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