Have you ever wondered where the first nuclear power plant built for domestic peacetime was located? On this week’s Energy Bite, Joel Tarr, a professor of Carnegie Mellon University has some answers.

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• History by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Photographs, Written Historical and Descriptive Data by the Historic American Engineering Record
• Doing a Job by Adm. Hyman G. Rickover

Transcript

HOST: Have you ever wondered where the first nuclear power plant built for domestic peacetime was located? On this week’s Energy Bite, Joel Tarr, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has some answers.

JOEL: The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. It was located, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh and was built in 1957. The station was created and operated under the direction of Admiral Hyman Rickover, who was known as the father of the nuclear navy. It was decommissioned in 1982 because it couldn’t go on forever.

HOST: Are there any nuclear power plants near Pittsburgh today?

JOEL: Today, FirstEnergy Corporation operates the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport about an hour from the city near the Atomic Power Station site. The world’s largest supplier of nuclear technology is Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Cranberry, Pennsylvania in the Pittsburgh Region.

HOST: Do you live near a nuclear power plant? Take our poll, see the results, and ask your energy questions at Energy Bite dot org.