High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, "the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses," (though the British Magnox reactor at Calder Hall was first connected to the grid on 27 August 1956, it also produced plutonium for military uses) was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA, about 25 miles (40 km) from Pittsburgh. The reactor went online December 2, 1957, and was in operation until October, 1982. It was an experimental, light water moderated, thermal breeder reactor and is notable for its ability to transmute (inexpensive) Thorium 232 to Uranium 233 (the latter being the fissile material that fueled the reaction within the reactor core).