Operation
Operations began in 1954 while construction was ongoing with the plant coming fully online in early 1956 several months ahead of schedule.
The primary mode of enrichment was the gaseous diffusion of uranium hexaflouride to separate the lighter fissile isotope, U-235, from the heavier non-fissile isotope, U-238. The plant initially produced material for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. In the mid-1960s, the plant converted to fuel production for commercial nuclear power plants. Portsmouth took material from Paducah that was enriched to 2.75% U-235 and further enriched it to approximately 4% and 5%.
The Portsmouth plant had a capacity of 8.3 million separative work units per year (SWU/year) in 1984 in 4080 stages. Three buildings, X-326, X-330 and X-333, housed gaseous diffusion equipment. Three cooling tower complexes, X-626, X-630, and X-633, were used to remove process heat. Six hundred eighty-nine million gallons of water went through the 11 cooling towers daily, of which 20 million gallons evaporated into the air. Water came from well fields installed at the Scioto River supplying 40 million gallons per day when operating at full capacity.
To support operations, the AEC entered into the largest contract for a single customer in the history of the electrical utility industry for power at that time. Power usage was equal to the all-time high voltage requirements in the United States, more than 2,000 megawatts daily - 18 billion kilowatt hours yearly. To handle the power requirements, two large switchyards were constructed on site. Two large steam electric generating stations were built to supply power at Clifty Creek in Madison, Indiana and Kyger Creek in Gallipolis, Ohio. At the time, they were the largest power plants built by private industry as well as the most efficient, producing 1 kilowatt hour of electricity for 0.7 pounds of coal. The power plants used 7.5 million tons of coal annually to support operations.
In May 2001, USEC ceased uranium enrichment operations at the Piketon plant and consolidated operations in Paducah. The following year, transfer and shipping operations were also consolidated in Paducah.
Read more about this topic: Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
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