Forty years ago, Nuclear News published an analysis of U.S. nuclear plant operations over the three years that followed the Three Mile Island-2 accident in 1979, scrutinizing capacity factors as a measure of how well a reactor was performing compared to its potential. The purpose: "To call attention to the units that have had the best results, and to explore the question: What have the personnel at these top units been doing right?" Nuclear power reactors now regularly deliver capacity factors that seemed out of reach in the 1980s. The highest three-year capacity factor published in that first survey in 1983-achieved by Point Beach-2 in Wisconsin-was 83.3 percent. Four decades later, NN is still tracking capacity factors, and all but six of the reactors in this year's survey have capacity factors above that former peak. Clearly, reactor personnel are doing a lot of things right.
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