Explore Nuclear Energy

Look up during the day to see one of the most powerful examples of a nuclear reactor: the sun. Inside the sun, fusion reactions take place at very high temperatures and enormous gravitational pressures The foundation of nuclear energy is harnessing the... Read More

One way the energy industry measures the reliability of power plants is by regularly calculating capacity factors. Capacity factor measures how often a plant is running at maximum power. It’s expressed as a percentage and calculated by dividing the actual unit of electricity output by the maximum possible output. This ratio is important because it indicates how fully a generating unit is used. Read More

It doesn’t have the ring of Ready, Set, Go or Lights, Camera, Action. But... Batteries charged, Motor functions validated, Cameras online, sounds like innovation within the Duke Energy nuclear fleet. After working through those quick steps, L-Mo is... Read More

So you probably know by now nuclear power generation starts with a uranium atom, but do you know where that uranium atom comes from? Or how uranium gets to a nuclear plant? Or what happens to it when it gets to the plant? Here’s the life cycle of... Read More

Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 27, 2012. It has been revised, updated and republished. Nuclear energy accounts for almost 50% of the Carolinas electricity with zero carbon emissions.Through the fission process, our highly... Read More

On March 7, 2021, Robinson Nuclear Plant celebrated 50 years of commercial operations, or more simply, 50 years of providing electricity to customers in the Carolinas. In 1971, the plant was the largest nuclear power plant constructed in the world and... Read More

Out of sight, out of mind. Unless you work for an electric utility, you probably don’t think a lot about where your electricity comes from. But, you should. More than a quarter of the electricity Duke Energy generates comes from a unique source –... Read More

One of the many questions we receive from community members is about the startup process of a nuclear reaction in our plants. For those of us who aren’t nuclear operators or engineers, it can seem like a mysterious process. To help shed some light on this mystery, here’s a highly simplified explanation for how it works. Read More

On June 29, 1985, Catawba Nuclear Station, sitting on Lake Wylie’s South Carolina side, began commercial operations. Read More