Entergy Miss. Grand Gulf reactor exits outage

June 20 (Reuters) - Entergy Corp's 1,268-megawatt
Grand Gulf nuclear power plant in Mississippi ramped up to 28
percent power by early Wednesday after it began exit an outage
by Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a
report.
The unit had been on a planned refueling outage since Feb
20.
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PLANT BACKGROUND/TIMELINE
STATE: Mississippi
COUNTY: Claiborne
TOWN: Port Gibson, about 60 miles west-southwest of
Jackson, the state capital
OPERATOR: Entergy Corp's Entergy Nuclear
OWNER(S): Entergy Corp's System Energy
Resources Inc (90 pct) South Mississippi Electric
Power Association (10 pct)
Capacity: 1,268 MW
UNIT(S): General Electric boiling water reactor
FUEL: Nuclear
DISPATCH: Baseload
COST: $3.5 billion

TIMELINE:
1970 - Plant construction starts - cost estimate $1.2
billion for two reactors
1979 - Entergy stops work on Unit 2 due to unexpectedly
high costs
1985 - Unit 1 enters service
2005 - Entergy and NuStart pick General Electric/Hitachi
1,550 MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor
(ESBWR) for potential new Unit 3 at the site
2007 - NRC issues early site permit for the site
2008 - NRC and NuStart file combined construction and
operating license (COL) application for the
potential new reactor at the site
2009 - Entergy asks NRC to suspend review of COL for
potential new reactor
Nov 2011 - Entergy filed with NRC to renew the
original 40-year operating license for an
additional 20 years
2024 - Unit 1 license expires