User:Soulscanner/Sandbox/Darlington

Planning
Construction of the Darlington plant was first proposed in the late 1960's by Ontario Hydro, the province's public power utility, in order to keep up with rapidly increasing demand for electrical power. The Darlington station would be the last and most powerful of a series of CANDU reactors begun by Ontario Hydro in the 1960's and 1970's to meet Ontario's energy demand to the year 2000. The early 1970s energy crisis added urgency Ontario's search for alternatives to fossil fuels to fuel its power grid. Progressive Conservative government of Premier Bill Davis became a strong advocate of Ontario Hydro's nuclear program. Planning for the new plant began in 1973. Preliminary estimates indicated that Hydro could build the plant for $2.5 billion.

In 1975, concerns about rapidly changing financial and energy markets as well as environmental and safety concerns led to the Darlington project becoming part of the 5-year long Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning (RCEEP) study that assessed Ontario's future energy needs for the years 1983-1993.

In July 1977 the Ontario government and Ontario Hydro announced construction of a four-unit plant that would come online in stages between 1985 and 1988 and provide 15% of Ontario's power at its completion. Because climbing interest rates of the 1970's. greatly increased the cost of borrowing, especially for long-term megaprojects, the projected cost of the project rose to $5 billion. By 1978, the cost estimate had again risen to $7.4 billion as Hydro began to prepare the site. Energy conservation efforts and economic slowdown

Construction
Construction began in 1981, and by 1986 was one of the largest construction sites in North America, employing 7000 workers.

A decrease in the projected level of energy consumption led the Ontario

In 1991, problems arose first reactor unit, and it was shut down for 2 months. A similar problem occurred with the second unit, and it was shut down for 20 months. Engineers at Darlington had redesigned the heat transport system to run more efficiently and generate more power, but this woulkd cause impellers in the cooling system to send pressure pulses. This caused a fuel bundle to crack and become jammed when the unit was started, forcing the shut down of the unit. A similar problem occurred with the second unit, and it too was shut down. In January 1991, an investigation into the safety of the reactors was launched to find the cause of the cracks.

Construction began in 1981, with unit 2 was brought online in 1990, Unit 1 in 1992, and Units 3 and 4 in 1993.

Following the completion of Unit 2 at the Darlington Nuclear Power Station in 1990, utility revenue per kWh increased by 6 per cent in real terms on average each year from 1990 to 1993 – prompting the government to institute a rate freeze that was continued for nearly a decade. The accumulation of significant electricity sector debt and the need to undertake infrastructure renewal eventually led a new government to lift the rate freeze in April 2004.

The facility was constructed in stages between 1981 and 1993 by the provincial Crown corporation, Ontario Hydro.

Operation
In April 1999 Ontario Hydro was split into 5 component Crown corporations with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) taking over all electrical generating stations. The Darlington reactors have been among the best performing in OPG's CANDU fleet, including a top year in 2008 in which the plant achieved a combined 94.5% capacity factor. In June 2016, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) named Darlington one of the safest and top performing nuclear stations in the world - for the third time in a row.

After public hearings, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission announced in December 2015 the renewal of Darlington’s power reactor operating licence, for a 10 year period from Jan. 1, 2016 until Nov. 30, 2025, to allow for the refurbishment of the Darlington station, which began in October 2016.

In March 2017, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and its venture arm, Canadian Nuclear Partners, announced plans to produce Plutonium-238 as a second source for NASA. Rods containing Np-237 will be fabricated by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Washington State and shipped to OPG's Darlington Nuclear Generating Station where they will be irradiated with neutrons inside the reactor's core to produce Pu-238.