Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Nuclear power plant in Wintersburg, Maricopa County, United States.
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant in Tonopah, Maricopa County, Arizona, operating three pressurized water reactors. The facility supplies electricity to households across Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
Construction of the plant began in 1976 and the three reactors went online between January 1986 and January 1988. Commissioning followed roughly a decade of planning and building work in the Arizona desert.
The facility maintains strong connections with local communities through partnerships with STEM education programs and employs numerous military veterans among its workforce.
The plant sits in a remote desert area west of Phoenix and is not open to the public. Visitors can check the official website for occasional educational programs that are sometimes offered.
The plant uses treated municipal wastewater for cooling because natural water sources are absent in the desert. This system makes it the only nuclear facility worldwide that operates entirely without river or ocean water.
Location: Tonopah
Location: Maricopa County
Location: Arizona
Inception: April 24, 1986
Operator: Arizona Public Service
GPS coordinates: 33.38920,-112.86500
Latest update: December 5, 2025 16:10
This collection brings together nuclear power plants that have shaped the history of civilian nuclear energy. Some experienced accidents that changed the world’s view of nuclear energy. Chernobyl in Ukraine remains a symbol of the 1986 disaster, while Fukushima in Japan showed the risks of natural events. Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania paused the building of new reactors in the US for many years. Other sites are among the largest in the world, like Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Japan or Bruce in Canada. Many places are facing challenges today, such as the Zaporijia plant in Ukraine. The collection also includes projects that tried to push the technical limits of this energy. Superphénix in France and Monju in Japan explored new types of reactors, with mixed results. Some facilities, like Bataan in the Philippines, were never operational despite being fully built. Others, like Oyster Creek or Tokai, helped start nuclear work in their countries. From Siberia to the United Arab Emirates, from Canada to India, these sites tell stories about energy choices, technical progress, failures, and questions that have surrounded this source of power for more than sixty years.
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