Quad City Generating Plant
N 41° 43.715 W 090° 18.560
15T E 723788 N 4623140
From Interstate 80, it's a scenic 10 mile drive along the Mississippi River to arrive here.
Waymark Code: WMHYE
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 07/22/2006
Views: 134
The Quad City Generating Plant is a two-unit nuclear power plant located north of Cordova, Illinois on the Mississippi River. The General Electric boiling water reactors (BWR) give the plant a total electric capacity of approximately 1700 MW. That is enough electricity to supply the needs of over one million average American homes. The Quad Cities plant is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation. It is named for the nearby cities known as the Quad Cities: Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa, and Moline and Rock Island, Illinois.
Construction was started in 1966 and the units were put on-line December 14, 1972. Its license to operate has been extended and will expire Dec 14, 2012. Quad Cities has about 657 Exelon employees and over 150 semi-permanent contractors (primarily security personnel). Additionally, during refuel outages, Quad Cities’ employs several hundred temporary contractors.
There are no cooling towers at this plant. A long, narrow, cooling pond was constructed, with large flotation recirculation sprayers located along the entire length. With the Mississippi River nearby, to provide water for some cooling, it was soon found that the recirculation sprayers were not needed. You will cross a bridge over this narrow pond as you get close to the plant.
One unique experiment occurred in this cooling pond. Hybrid striped bass fingerlings were released into the pond. They were monitored over several years for growth rate and some were removed as starter stock to some lakes. At the end, all of the fish were removed. The experiment was a huge success and fish raising ponds went into production for stocking these hybrids into more lakes across the country.