History Of The Shippingport Atomic Power Station

A engineering achievement that has made a huge impact to today's society is the Shippingport Atomic Power Station. The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was the first world full scale atomic power plant that was devoted to exclusively to peacetime users only. The power station started its production December 18, 1957. It took thirty two months to create the power station and it cost 72.5 million dollars. The Shippingport Atomic Power Station ground was broken in 1954 during dedication ceremonies by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who also opened it on may 26, 1958, as a part of his “Atoms for Peace” program. The power station is located on the ohio river about twenty five miles from Pittsburgh. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation designed
As of March 2014, 435 nuclear power plants are in operation worldwide, 104 of the them are located in the U.S. On the day of Shippingport Atomic Power Station’s dedication, May 26, 1958, President Eisenhower, who five years before gave his famous Atoms for Peace address at the United Nations, delivered a speech via electronic hook up to people who gathered at the Shippingport site. The ecstatic crowd of government officials, dignitaries and business elite shared the sense of accomplishment, congratulating each other on completing the landmark plant just in 32 months. Final costs for the entire plant ran up to $75 million. Philip Fleger, chairman of the Board of Duquesne Light and the man of vision, who won the bid with his Shippingport offer, was among the enthusiasts: ”It is altogether fitting that this station should be located close to the birthplace of the petroleum industry and on top of one of the world’s greatest coal fields,” he said. “For the history of industry and man’s progress is closely bound to the history of fuel…” It was in Shippingport where experts established practices and rules on how to operate a nuclear power plant. A mistake could be costly and the main rule at Shippingport read: “No carelessness can be tolerated anywhere, for the entire chain of events can prove disastrous.” In the 1960s experts from Shippingport traveled to Japan when the Japanese started talking about using
Shippingport proved the concept of commercial nuclear power generation and set the stage for nuclear power's rise to prominence over the second half of the 20th Century. The Power Station has helped us research more on power plants and pushed us further into nuclear power in all of the world and helped us become a world power and increased are skill in technology. This Power Station has created a basis of everything that has advanced in Atomic bombs to nuclear weapons that we have