Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant

The Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Generating Plant is located near Dothan, Alabama, in the southern United States. The twin-unit nuclear power station sits on a largely wooded and agricultural 1850 acre site along the Chattahoochee River, approximately 5 mi south of Columbia, Alabama, in Houston County.

History
The plant is named after the late Joseph McConnell Farley, an American attorney born in Birmingham, Alabama, who became president of Alabama Power (owner of the facility) from 1969 to 1989 and was later CEO of Southern Nuclear Operating Company; both companies are subsidiaries of Southern Company.

Construction of the plant began in 1970. Fluor Corporation of Irving, Texas was the general contractor. Unit 1 achieved commercial operation in December 1977. Unit 2 began commercial operation in July 1981. The total cost of the plant was about $1.57 billion. On May 12, 2005, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved license renewal applications for both reactors at the site. Unit 1's extended operating license is set to expire on June 25, 2037 and Unit 2's on March 31, 2041.

Technology
This plant has two Westinghouse reactors. Both units are three-loop pressurized water reactors. The facility is cooled using six mechanical draft cooling towers supplied by water from the Chattahoochee River.
 * Unit 1: 2,821 MWt
 * Unit 2: 2,821 MWt

Ownership

 * Farley, Unit 1
 * Owner = Alabama Power Company (100 percent).
 * Operator (Licensee) = Southern Nuclear Operation Company.
 * Farley, Unit 2
 * Owner = Alabama Power Company (100 percent).
 * Operator (Licensee) = Southern Nuclear Operation Company.

Surrounding population
The NRC defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 mi, concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 mi, concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.

The 2010 U.S. population within 10 mi of Farley was 11,842, an increase of 8.0 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 mi was 421,374, an increase of 6.1 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Dothan (17 miles to city center).

Seismic risk
The NRC's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Farley was 1 in 35,714, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.