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Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station

1956 establishments in MichiganBuildings and structures in Monroe County, MichiganCivilian nuclear power accidentsDTE EnergyEnergy infrastructure completed in 1957
Energy infrastructure completed in 1988Nuclear accidents and incidents in the United StatesNuclear power plants in MichiganNuclear power stations using Economic Simplified Boiling Water ReactorsNuclear power stations with proposed reactorsTowers in Michigan
Fermi NPP
Fermi NPP

The Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant on the shore of Lake Erie near Monroe, in Frenchtown Charter Township, Michigan on approximately 1,000 acres (400 ha). All units of the plant are operated by the DTE Energy Electric Company and owned (100 percent) by parent company DTE Energy. It is approximately halfway between Detroit, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio. It is also visible from parts of Amherstburg and Colchester, Ontario as well as on the shore of Lake Erie in Ottawa County, Ohio. Two units have been constructed on this site. The first unit's construction started on August 4, 1956 and reached initial criticality on August 23, 1963, and the second unit received its construction permit on September 26, 1972. It reached criticality (head on) on June 21, 1985 and was declared commercial on November 18, 1988. The plant is connected to two single-circuit 345 kV Transmission Lines and three 120 kV lines. They are operated and maintained by ITC Transmission. The plant is named after the Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, most noted for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor as well as many other major contributions to nuclear physics. Fermi won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity. On October 5, 1966, Fermi 1, a prototype fast breeder reactor, suffered a partial fuel meltdown, although no radioactive material was released. After repairs it was shut down by 1972.On August 8, 2008, John McCain was taken on a 45-minute tour of the plant, becoming the first actively campaigning presidential candidate to visit a nuclear plant.

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Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station
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N 41.962777777778 ° E -83.2575 °
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Enrico Fermi Drive

Enrico Fermi Drive
48166
Michigan, United States
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Fermi 1
Fermi 1

Fermi 1 was the United States' only demonstration-scale breeder reactor, built during the 1950s at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station on the western shore of Lake Erie south of Detroit, Michigan. It used the sodium-cooled fast reactor cycle, in which liquid sodium metal is used as the primary coolant instead of more typical nuclear reactor designs which are cooled with water. Sodium cooling allows for a more compact core with surplus neutrons, which are used to produce more fission fuel by converting a surrounding "blanket" of 238U into 239Pu which can be fed back into a reactor. At full power, it would generate 430 MW of heat (MWt), or about 150 MW of electricity (MWe). The design and construction of Fermi 1 was led primarily through the efforts of Walker Lee Cisler, president of Detroit Edison. Cisler believed that the breeder cycle would dominate the future commercial market as it would guarantee an effectively limitless supply of fuel, and ceaselessly championed efforts to produce Fermi 1 based on the design of the small experimental EBR-I in Idaho. His efforts were supported by Lewis Strauss, chair of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), who was a strong advocate of private companies entering the nuclear field. On 29 November 1955, EBR-I suffered a partial meltdown for reasons that were not completely understood at the time. Construction licensing for Fermi 1 started in January 1956. The AEC's review panel suggested the design should not proceed until the issue with EPR and breeder design in general was better understood with further testing on new experimental systems like EBR-II. When the report was mentioned in congressional meetings, Strauss refused to discuss it and approved construction. This led to a firestorm of debate within Congress and the press, along with a series of lawsuits by the United Auto Workers that briefly led to its construction license being revoked. Construction was delayed by several years and its budget doubled during that time; originally planned to start operations in 1959 or early 1960, Fermi 1 achieved criticality on 23 August 1963. While slowly increasing its power rating over the next two years, on 5 October 1966 it suffered a partial meltdown when the flow of sodium was disrupted by blockage of the inlet holes at the bottom of the reactor. The problem was seen early enough to safely scram the reactor and there was no radioactive release outside the containment building. The site was shut down for repairs and restarted in July 1970. It ran for only a short period before closing again on 27 November 1972, and was officially decommissioned on 31 December 1975.