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20-482: SMUD owned the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station nuclear power plant, shut down by a vote of the utility's rate-payers in the late 1980s. Although the nuclear plant is now decommissioned, its now-unused iconic towers remain on the site. Solar arrays and the 500-megawatt Cosumnes gas-fired plant have risen in proximity to the towers. SMUD's headquarters building , built in the late 1950s on

40-707: A 2005 document, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicated that it was the third most serious safety-related occurrence in the United States as of 2005 (behind the Three Mile Island accident and the Browns Ferry cable tray fire). The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff concluded that fundamental design flaws which were known by plant operators and the NRC itself were at

60-515: A storage building for low-level radioactive waste and a dry-cask spent fuel storage facility remain under NRC licenses. According to a study published in the journal Biomedicine International , the statistically significant drop in cancer rates observed in Sacramento County between 1988 and 2009 (plant closed in 1989) might be partially attributable to the closure of the Rancho Seco plant, and

80-596: A supplier to the Manhattan Project . After the war they entered the nuclear reactor business, and became a major supplier for commercial nuclear power plants. They also built naval nuclear reactors, including for the first commercial nuclear ship . In 2000 the company filed for bankruptcy due to lawsuits from employees over asbestos exposure; they emerged from bankruptcy in 2006. The company had works association football teams which played at senior level in Scotland and

100-650: Is in the Advisory Council of the PHEV Research Center . Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station The Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station is a decommissioned nuclear power plant built by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) in Herald, California . In 1966, SMUD purchased 2,100 acres (850 ha) in southeast Sacramento County for a nuclear power plant, which

120-482: The County of Sacramento for day-use activities. The 2,772 MWt Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactor (913 MWe) achieved initial criticality on September 16, 1974, and entered commercial operation on April 17, 1975. On March 20, 1978, a power supply failure for the plant's non-nuclear instrumentation system led to steam generator dryout (ref NRC LER 312/78-001). This triggered an automatic reactor shutdown. In

140-592: The District's UARP assets include: SMUD owns the first of potentially two natural gas power plants (the Cosumnes Power Plant, brought online in 2006 on property adjacent to the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear facility) as well as wind-powered and solar-powered electric generation facilities. In addition, the utility owns some small gas-fired peaker plants for meeting the highest energy demands, typically on Sacramento's notably blistering summer days. SMUD

160-755: The SMUD Rancho Seco Nuclear Education Center. Babcock %26 Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. is an American energy technology and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio . Historically, the company is best known for their steam boilers . The company was founded in 1867 in Providence, Rhode Island , by partners Stephen Wilcox and George Babcock to manufacture and market Wilcox's patented water-tube boiler . B&W's list of innovations and firsts include

180-645: The Yolo County cities of West Sacramento , Davis and Woodland , along with territory between the three cities. In February 2020, 75 project customers, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, received permanent federal water contracts for the Central Valley Project. SMUD is governed by a seven-member Board of Directors. Each member is elected by residents in a "ward" or constituency for four-year terms. As of January 2024

200-553: The area around the plant are abandoned civil defense sirens that at one time would have warned people of a radioactivity release from the station. Additions to SMUD's Rancho Seco property have included an 11 MW solar installation and, in 2006, the 600 MW natural gas-fired Cosumnes Power Plant. On October 23, 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission released the majority of the site for unrestricted public use, while approximately 11 acres (4.5 ha) of land including

220-641: The directors were: SMUD's electricity generation capacity derives from the watershed of the South Fork of the American River , called the " Upper American River Project (UARP)" in federal licensing documents. The project is an extensive complex of multiple retention dams, diversion dams, reservoirs, canals, tunnels and hydroelectric powerplants. The plants are run during hours of peak demand, though retaining sufficient flood control capacity dictates water releases to some extent. From upstream to downstream,

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240-598: The edge of the East Sacramento neighborhood, is notable for its mural by Sacramento artist Wayne Thiebaud . The mural wraps around the ground floor of the building and is accessible to the public. It is one of the earliest major works by the artist, and remains his largest installation to date. Created by a vote of Sacramento County residents on 2 July 1923 pursuant to the Municipal Utility District Act, SMUD's ability to provide power to its customer-owners

260-604: The heart of the problem and should have been fixed years before. “In summary, the information was available and known which could have prevented this overcooling transient; but in the absence of adequate plant modifications, the incident should have been expected,” the staff wrote. The plant operated from April 1975 to June 1989, with a lifetime capacity factor of less than 40%; it was closed by public vote in June 1989 (53% to 47%) after half of its intended lifetime primarily for economic reasons: ratepayers had seen their rates doubled in

280-496: The last four years to pay for improvements to the plant, and electricity from natural gas was priced at half that of the electricity generated by Rancho Seco. (2.3 cents / kWh, vs. 5.4 cents / kWh) All power-generating equipment has been removed from the plant, and the 425-foot high (130 m) cooling towers remain a prominent part of the local landscape as the tallest buildings in the Central Valley . Also scattered throughout

300-504: The resultant decline in nuclear emissions. The result has been questioned by radiation expert and health physicist Robert Emery, who suggested it being the result of the sharpshooter fallacy and highlighted the author Joseph Mangano's history of exaggerated claims about radiological risks. The plant cost $ 375 million when it was built in 1974 ($ 1.8 billion in 2023 dollars ) and it cost about $ 120 million in 1974 dollars to decommission ($ 577 million in 2023 dollars ), according to

320-520: The voters have continued in more recent turf battles with PG&E. In the 1980s, residents of Folsom voted to join SMUD, with PG&E fighting the annexation in the courts. Folsom rate-payers are now part of SMUD. In 2006, PG&E successfully convinced SMUD rate-payers and rate-payers in Yolo County to vote down an annexation proposal that would have extended the public utility's service territory to include

340-473: The world's first installed utility boiler (1881); manufacture of boilers to power New York City's first subway (1902); first pulverized coal power plant (1918); design and manufacture of components for USS  Nautilus , the world's first nuclear-powered submarine (1953–55); the first supercritical pressure coal-fired boiler (1957); design and supply of reactors for the first U.S. built nuclear-powered surface ship, NS  Savannah (1961). The company

360-556: Was built in Herald, 25 miles (40 km) south-east of downtown Sacramento. In the early 1970s, a small pond was expanded to a 160-acre (65 ha) lake to serve as an emergency backup water supply for the station. The lake has always received its water from the Folsom South Canal and has no relationship with the power plant's daily water supply. Surrounding the lake is 400 acres (160 ha) of recreational area originally operated by

380-421: Was founded in 1867 by Stephen Wilcox , Jr. and his partner George Herman Babcock with the intention of building safer steam boilers. Stephen Wilcox first avowed that “there must be a better way” to safely generate power, and he and George Babcock responded with the design for the first inherently safe water-tube boiler. B&W was the main builder of naval boilers for American forces during World War II, and were

400-655: Was stymied in the courts for nearly a quarter century by the investor-owned Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) of San Francisco. A court ruling eventually sided with SMUD, which began providing power at the beginning of 1946. SMUD is a public agency of the State of California, and as such is not subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 's jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act . Echoes of SMUD's fight to fulfill its original mandate from

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