Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit 1

In his 1953 United Nations “Atoms for Peace” speech President Dwight D. Eisenhower set the stage for commercial nuclear power generation in America. Within 10 years of the speech nearly 20 commercial nuclear reactors were under construction. The world’s first large-scale nuclear power plant began operating in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, on December 2, 1957. The following year the Philadelphia Electric Co. ordered the construction of the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in Peach Bottom Township, York County, approximately 3 miles north of the Pennsylvania–Maryland border.

Construction of the facility began in February 1962. Unit 1, manufactured by General Atomics, was the first high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor ever built in the United States. The unit was experimental and used helium gas as a coolant and graphite as a neutron moderator. The reactor was fueled by a mixture of thorium and uranium and produced more than 1.2 million megawatt-hours of electricity over 1,349 equivalent full-power days, which was then distributed by the Philadelphia Electric Co.

The advantages of this type of reactor were that it was able to use natural uranium as a fuel instead of enriched uranium; voids in the reactor moderator did not occur as the coolant remained gaseous at operating temperature; a high coolant outlet temperature could be achieved; it operated at a lower pressure than pressurized reactors; and there was little danger of a hydrogen explosion as no water was present.

Peach Bottom Unit 1 was in service from June 1966 to November 1974. Unit 1 was replaced by Units 2 and 3, both General Electric boiling water thermal neutron reactors that use demineralized water as both a coolant and a moderator. Construction of these two later units began in 1968, with both going online in the second half of 1974. Units 2 and 3 were each originally rated at 3,514 megawatts thermal, equivalent to approximately 1,180 megawatts of electricity. They have each since been uprated to 4,016 megawatts thermal, equivalent to around 1,382 megawatts net of electricity. Both units remain in operation today with the facility producing enough energy to power the equivalent of nearly 2 million homes. Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station is one of 98 nuclear power plants in the United States.

This postcard image of Peach Bottom Unit 1 was taken by Marshall A. Dussinger (1933–88) likely during the 1966–74 period when the reactor was in operation. Dussinger was a prolific and award-winning newspaper, press and commercial photographer based in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. In 1956 he and his wife Stella formed STEL-MAR, a postcard publishing and distribution business that catered to the tourist trade. Dussinger was best known for his photographs of the Amish, Pennsylvania Dutch themes, and local points of interest. The “Atomic Power Plant” postcard is a wonderful example of 1960s–1970s tourist ephemera and a nod to the zeitgeist of the Atomic Age.

John P. Wood is the manager of the Historic Preservation Incentives Division in the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office.