ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE, where clouds are made, LOL. When our nephew was very young he thought his Uncle "Nukeworker" worked where they made clouds. Hope you get to see clouds being made during your visit.
To claim a find on this cache, you must visit the location of the cache page coordinates. This is a virtual cache so there is no physical container to find here. In order to get credit for this virtual cache you must complete the three tasks listed here, and please consider doing the fourth optional task.
Logging requirements
1) Post a picture of yourself or group (or something identifying you, or your GPS, or a sign, etc.) at ground zero with the nuclear plant in the background. Photos must be taken near the cache coordinates where ANO can be seen and downloaded with your log to qualify to claim this virtual cache. Please note that the picture taken at the cache location does not require that the cachers face be visible in the photograph.
Please email to (nukemator@gmail.com) or message (through geocaching.com) Nukeworker the answers to the following questions at the same time you log the cache:
2) Next to ground zero is a Blue sign that talks about "The Removal or Alteration of" _________ is prohibited. What is prohibited? What are the TWO penalties?
3) 150 feet Southeast of the cache coordinates you will spot a telephone pole just a few feet from the edge of the pavement. There are four series of numbers attached to it. The top number in green reads #10A1. Below that you'll find a number in yellow, then a long 7 digit number in white, and then a two digit white number. What is this two digit number?
4) OPTIONAL QUESTION FOR EXTRA CREDIT : Yes, there is a math question, but it is a totally optional exercise. It will help you understand the magnitude of the power generated by this nuclear power plant. Lets calculate how many homes that this power plant could supply electrical power to. This two unit nuclear station generates a total of about 1745 MWe for sale to the Entergy customers. This is equivalent to 1,256,400,000 Kilowatt hours generated in a 30 day month. Now lets see how many homes that would supply. Take one of your monthly electric bills and find how many KW hours you used in that month. Divide the station power monthly generation, ( 1,256,400,000 kWh) by your home’s KWh used. This is the number of homes that ANO could supply. HINT, your number should be around 1 million.
"Found it" logs that are not supported with an email or message within 2 days of the date of the log will be deleted. Please DO NOT post answers in your online log or in your pictures, or your log will be deleted.
Arkansas Nuclear One Virtual Reward - This virtual cache is to celebrate the Arkansas Nuclear One Power Plant, which was the center of our lives for almost 20 years. Nuclear power is a zero-emission clean energy source. It generates power through fission, which is the process of splitting uranium atoms to produce energy. The heat released by fission is used to create steam that spins a turbine to generate electricity without the harmful byproducts emitted by fossil fuels.
Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) is a two-unit pressurized water nuclear power plant run by Entergy Operations. The plant is located on Lake Dardanelle just outside Russellville, Arkansas. It is spread over a 1,100-acre site, which was selected in 1967 due to the availability of water, and good access to rail and road transport. A 150 ft shale and rock layer that is 20 ft underneath the proposed site, provided a solid foundation and reduced initial foundation construction work. ANO is the only operating nuclear power plant in Arkansas.
ANO’s Unit 1 went on-line in May 1974. Unit 2 was added to the plant in 1978 and it became operational in 1980. Unit One has a gross generating capacity of about 886 MWe of electricity. (MWe is Mega Watts electric). The nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) was supplied by Babcock & Wilcox. Unit 1 is currently licensed to operate through May 20, 2034, after a 20 year license extension was approved by the NRC. Note that the Unit 1 NET generation, or the amount of electricity that is actually available for sale to the public, is 850 MWe. The difference between the gross and net generation, about 36 MWe, is the electricity required to run plant equipment during operation. The electricity consuming plant equipment includes many large and small equipment motors, compressors, ventilation systems and many other electrical components.
Unit Two has a gross generating capacity of about 930 MWe of electricity, and came online on September 1, 1978. It is licensed to operate through July 18, 2038, after their 20 year license extension was approved by the NRC. Its nuclear reactor was supplied by Combustion Engineering.
Refueling outages Refueling outages happen every 18 months for each unit, and the outage typically lasts 30 - 40 days or more, depending on the work scheduled. When a unit is in a refueling outage, employees cover shifts 24/7 until it is back on line. The refueling outage installs new fuel in the reactor core; actually only one third of the fuel is new, since the fuel has a life of 3 operating cycles. Other refueling outage activities include scheduled maintenance work that must be done when the unit isn’t running, installation of plant modifications to improve unit operation, required equipment testing, and many other required activities.
Cooling Water One of the important factors in locating a power plant is having a source of cooling water. A nuclear power plant requires a large amount of cooling water as part of the steam cycle. This cooling water usage is the same requirement for coal or gas steam powered plants. ANO Unit One has a once-through cooling water system, where the unit pumps cooling water out of Lake Dardanelle and through the unit condenser at a rate of about 750,000 gallons per minute by 4 monster water pumps. You actually drove over the Unit 1 cooling water inlet canal to reach this cache. It was under the bridge just before the road entrance to the Engineering/Office Building. The cooling water gains about 13 degrees F from going through the condenser to condense the turbine exhaust steam, and is then returned to the lake. At the virtual cache location, the cooling water is leaving the plant and entering the lake on the far right where the orange boating barriers are strung across the water outlet canal. The photographs included on this cache page also show the circulating water canals into and out of the plant.
Cooling Tower The Unit Two cooling water system uses a six-story hyperbolic natural draft cooling tower as the cooling source for the Unit Two plant. The cooling tower is the most visible component on the plant site, and is a totally different way to cool the steam cycle than the once through cooling water system that Unit One uses. The same amount of cooling water must be pumped through the Unit Two condenser for the steam cycle cooling as Unit one uses (750,000 gpm). The Unit Two cooling water system is a closed loop system consisting of the cooling tower, the main condenser inside of the plant, and the very large circulating water pumps. The cooling tower cools the water flowing through it by evaporating a large amount of water within the tower. Just like your skin would feel cold if it was wet with a fan blowing air over its surface due to evaporation, water is evaporated within the tower to cool the circulating water. While the tower internals and its operation is much more complicated then will be discussed here, it basically evaporates on the order of 10,000 gallons per minute to cool the water being pumped into the plant. This evaporated water is replaced by lake water. The tower is called a hyperbolic natural draft tower because the shape of the tower shell draws airflow through the tower to cool the water. The tower operation is greatly affected by the environmental conditions, specifically the air wet bulb temperature. On a cold winter day when the air flowing through the tower is cold and very dry, the evaporation cycle cools the water very effectively. The tower evaporation effectiveness does not work nearly as well on hot and humid summer days. Tower design takes into account these different conditions in its design. You can see that the humid air flowing out of the tower on a hot humid day is slow and not very buoyant as compared to the air outlet flow on a cold winter day.
We were thrilled to receive a Virtual Cache Award this year and hope you enjoy learning more about a major industry in Russellville, AR. Please log anything interesting you see while finding this cache. In the past, at this boat launch, we have spotted pelicans, vultures, deer, squirrels, song birds, egrets, a Great Blue Heron, and other wildlife. Your log entry on the Geocaching website is our only reward for hiding this cache. This is Arkansas so please use caution at certain times of the year since we do have snakes, ticks, chiggers, skeeters, thorns and poison ivy.... just to mention a few of the things that could make your day miserable.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Nuclear_One
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-clean-and-sustainable
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.