Length of Indian Point reactor shutdown unclear

[kristopher]

Length of Indian Point reactor shutdown unclear

BUCHANAN – Engineers have to wait until the Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor cools down today before assessing how long the plant will remain offline following a water pump failure in the containment dome.

Workers shut down the 1,028-megawatt reactor about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday after the overflow from the sport utility vehicle-sized pump reached unacceptable levels.

No radiation was released outside the dome, although the pump carries radioactive water heated to about 540 degrees Fahrenheit and pushes 90,000 gallons of water per minute through each of four feeder pipes.

“I don’t know if we would describe it as routine when a plant has to shut down to fix a reactor coolant pump,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said. “But certainly there are procedures that deal with this kind of situation, and they followed those procedures. Now it’s really just a matter of going in there, carrying out the repairs and then trying to put the plant back in service.”

Before this morning...

http://www.lohud.com/article/20120111/NEWS/301100078/Length-Indian-Point-reactor-shutdown-unclear

The nature of sudden prolonged shutdowns of nuclear plants requires that a lot of spinning reserve power be kept constantly available.

[madokie]

1. My hope is that in 20 30 years from now nuclear power will be but a distance memory

it never was meant to be and wouldn't if not for the governments need to put a happy face on splitting atoms so the public wouldn't stop them from building the bombs that for some reason they think they need thousands of, enough to destroy the earth many times over. Dollar wise nuclear is not feasible on its own. The nuclear power industry is a whole lot like walmart, in order for them to take so much of our money they have to have government handouts. In walmarts case its subsidizing the underpaid workers amongst others, in nuclear industries case its government subsidies just to make it happen. Hell, insurance for a nuke plant alone would stop them in the board rooms and would never make it to the public.

Nuclear is not clean by any measure either. From beginning to end they barely beat out fossil fuel. Decommissioning a nuke is going to be a bitch and very costly too. Even after decommissioning I doubt the land the set on can ever be used safely for years and years.
In jim inhofe's words its the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.