Vallecitos Nuclear Center viewed from Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park
The Vallecitos Nuclear Center is a nuclear research facility, and the site of a former GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy electricity-generating nuclear power plant in unincorporated Alameda County, California, United States.[1] The facility is approximately 30 miles (48 km) east of San Francisco, under jurisdiction of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Region IV.[2]
The Vallecitos boiling water reactor (VBWR) was the first privately owned and operated nuclear power plant to deliver significant quantities of electricity to a public utility grid. During the period October 1957 to December 1963, it delivered approximately 40,000 megawatt-hours of electricity. This reactor—a light-water moderated and cooled, enriched uranium reactor using stainless steel-clad, plate-type fuel—was a pilot plant and test bed for fuel, core components, controls, and personnel training for the Dresden Nuclear Power Plant, a Commonwealth Edison station built in Illinois five years later.
The plant was originally a collaborative effort of General Electric and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, with Bechtel Corporation serving as engineering contractor. Samuel Untermyer II, the General Electric engineer responsible for the initial design of the VBWR, had performed much of the conceptual research at Argonne National Laboratory while conducting heat transfer and nuclear physics experiments, including the BORAX experiments. Vallecitos Power Plant held the US Atomic Energy Commission's "Power Reactor License No. 1".[3] The main power generating facilities closed in 1963.[4] The discovery of an active fault running beneath the facility led to the closure of its most productive reactors in 1977.[5]
The Vallecitos site includes the Radioactive Materials Laboratory where post-irradiation examinations were carried out. A small 100-kilowatt research reactor called the "Nuclear Test Reactor" (NTR, NRC License R-33) was the last operational reactor at the site. It utilized U-AL alloy fuel,[6] and was used for nondestructive material imaging.[7] Vallecitos also fabricated radioactive source materials used in medicine and industry, under a license issued by the State of California.[8] In May 2023,GE Hitachi announced the cessation of operations at the Vallecitos Nuclear Center with the intent of transferring ownership of the site to NorthStar Group Services for overall decommissioning.
^"Vallecitos Nuclear Center". GE Energy. Archived from the original on December 18, 2010. Retrieved March 17, 2011.
^Alameda County Maps
^"Paid Notice: Deaths Untermyer, Samuel II". The New York Times. 2001-01-31. Retrieved 2015-01-26.
^Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor (VBWR)
^"E. Bay plant quietly handles nuke waste". www.state.nv.us. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
^"Annual Statement of Non-availability of Federal Government Funding for Conversion from HEU to LEU for VNC Nuclear Test Reactor (NTR)" (PDF).
^"GEH Vallecitos Nuclear Center (VNC) Request for Alternate Decommissioning Schedules for DPR-1, DR-10 and TR-1 Licenses" (PDF).
^NRC to meet with public in California to discuss GE Vallecitos Nuclear Center Archived November 7, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
and 23 Related for: Vallecitos Nuclear Center information
California Vallecitos de Zaragoza, a town in Guerrero, Mexico VallecitosNuclearCenter a nuclear reactor in Alameda County, California Vallecitos, a ski...
1093/rpd/ncad014. PMID 37934987. M. E. Meek and B. F. Rider,, « », VallecitosNuclearCenter, Pleasanton, Calif., NEDO-12154-1. Nouvelle edition, 1974 J.C...
primary purpose was to produce plutonium for military uses. The VallecitosNuclearCenter started producing electric power in October 1957, but it served...
consortium of eight companies comprising the Nuclear Power Group Inc. The BWR at GE's VallecitosNuclearCenter and the AEC's BORAX experiments provided research...
: 314–316 In 1957, the company brought online VallecitosNuclearCenter, the first privately owned and operated nuclear reactor in the United States, in Pleasanton...
Indian Point Energy Center (I.P.E.C.) is a now defunct three-unit nuclear power station located in Buchanan, just south of Peekskill, in Westchester County...
all the commercial nuclear reactors in the world, sorted by country, with operational status. The list only includes civilian nuclear power reactors used...
Mountain View Cemetery NAS Alameda Oakland Museum of California VallecitosNuclearCenter Businesses Alibris Clorox Ellie Mae Ghirardelli Kaiser Permanente...
In the United States, nuclear power is provided by 92 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 94.7 gigawatts (GW), with 61 pressurized water reactors...
Fault (NIFZ) in the north and either the Agua Blanca Fault or San Miguel–Vallecitos Fault Zone in the south via en echelon step overs. Conservative estimates...
Saturn Vs on Display Teach Lessons in Space History". Marshall Space Flight Center History Office. Archived from the original on 15 November 2005. Retrieved...
Americans is Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA). Y-DNA, like (mtDNA), differs from other nuclear chromosomes in that the majority of the Y chromosome is unique and does...
researchers named Anzick-1. Paleogenetic analyses of Anzick-1's ancient nuclear, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosome DNA reveal that Anzick-1 is closely related...
Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center. Jijón y Caamaño, Jacinto. 1998. El Ecuador interandino y occidental antes...
Native American lineages formed. This theory is supported by maternal and nuclear DNA evidence. According to Grebenyuk, after 20,000 BP, a branch of Ancient...
Government Printing Office. Administration, U.S. Department of Energy: National Nuclear Security (2006). Findings of No Significant Impact and Final Environmental...
Ohio Valley adopted maize agriculture. They settled in small, year-round, nuclear family households and settlements of up to 40-50 individuals. These scattered...
December 1999. Copenhagen, Denmark: The Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Center. pp. 159–169. Archived from the original on 4 December 2018. Retrieved 19...
Water System Upgrade. Administration, U.S. Department of Energy: National Nuclear Security (2006). Findings of No Significant Impact and Final Environmental...
from both individuals. In 2018, researchers successfully sequenced the nuclear DNA from the petrous bone of both individuals, yielding around 17-fold...
Global Information