Donald C. Cook Nuclear Generating Station

Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant is a nuclear power plant located just north of the city of Bridgman, Michigan which is part of Berrien County, on a 650acre site 11 miles south of St. Joseph, Michigan, USA. The plant is owned by American Electric Power (AEP) and operated by Indiana Michigan Power, an AEP subsidiary. It has two nuclear reactors and is currently the company's only nuclear power plant.The construction cost of the power plant was $3.352 billion (2007 USD). The plant produces 2.2 GW of electricity, enough to meet the needs of a city with 1.25 million people.The plant is connected to the power grid via one 765 kV line that goes from the plant to AEP's DuMont substation near Lakeville, Indiana and by numerous 345 kV lines, two of which interconnect with Consumers Energy/METC, connecting with the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, owned by Entergy.License expiration and renewalThe US Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed the operating licenses of both reactors on August 30, 2005. With the renewal, Unit One's operating license will expire in 2034 while Unit Two's will expire in 2037. The units were initially licensed for forty years from their operational date.Surrounding populationThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of, concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about, concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.