Vt. nuke plant closes after radioactive water leak

[cory777]

Source: Associated Press

MONTPELIER, Vt. – Technicians at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant will begin work Monday morning to fix a pipe that leaked radioactive water and forced the plant to shut down.

The nuclear reactor was taken out of service at 7 p.m. Sunday. Plant spokesman Larry Smith estimated it would take 13 hours to cool down enough for workers to enter the area and make repairs.

Smith said the leak of about 60 drops a minute was spotted earlier Sunday during routine surveillance. It was coming from a 2-foot-wide pipe that was part of the circulation system involving the reactor, he said. The water was being collected by a sump pump and cycled back through the system, he said.

The cause of the leak was not immediately known. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the public was not in any danger.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101108/ap_on_bi_ge/us_vermont_yankee

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NEWS http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[druidity33]

1. not the first time with Vt Yankee...

and the NRC has lied to locals in the past about leaks. We'll see what happens this time. VT voted to close the Yankee Nuke Plant in 2012, but who knows how long it'll take to decommission and what will remain on the land afterwords...

:(


K&R

we'll see if the Nuke apologists on this board unrec this to nil...

[FraDon]

2. Too safe to meter !!

n/t

[Submariner]

3. "Too cheap to meter", but you got the point

I worked at a nuke construction site in Louisiana in the early '80s.

It was projected to cost $350 million when priced out in 1977. After the 3 mile Island accident, things changed. We turned on the nuke in 1985 for $4.2 Billion, 12 times the projected cost.

Too cheap to meter? Uh huh...

[Ian David]

4. See prior thread: Vt. reactor shuts down after leak from pipe

Vt. reactor shuts down after leak from pipe
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9509204

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

5. It begins

with a single drop . . .

[GliderGuider]

6. And in related news:

Thousands of coal plants refuse to close after deliberately discharging billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

All life on the planet at risk, scientists say.
Company officials respond: "Meh."

Get a grip on real-world risk assessment, folks.

[fascisthunter]

7. you say that while promoting nuke energy

i think people have a good enough ability to assess the dangers regarding nuclear power plants. Too expensive, toxic waste and potentially life threatening. That last bit is a very good reason for people to be alarmed with nuclear technology.

[GliderGuider]

8. Yes, I do.

I'm far more "alarmed" by rising CO2 than I am by any risks posed by nuclear power.

[fascisthunter]

9. but there are so many alternatives to support

for us to limit CO2 levels, we are going to need to utilize many alternatives and not just one over the other. We will see wind, tidal, solar, nuclear, coal, oil,.... all will be utilized and it will create more jobs.

[GliderGuider]

10. I'm in favour of supporting them as well.

What I'm not in favour of is taking nuclear power off the table.

[Heywood J]

11. Yeah, but when you consider that

current solar panels are often made in China, with Chinese cadmium mined and extracted under their definition of environmental and safety standards, plus all of cadmium's fun biological effects, I think I'll take the domestic nuclear plant that employs domestic workers under American safety standards, leaked no more than 1/3000th of its flow rate, and was caught by backup safety systems.


Solar has potential, but not the way we currently do it.

[Sirveri]

12. The plant is old, it's probably time to start the decommissioning process

Funny aside, I actually applied to work there back in 2008, sadly they didn't give me a plant tour, stupid BWR's.

It's one of the oldest operating nuclear plants around, and they don't last forever. The real problem is what to replace it with. It accounts for 2/3rd's of VT's power generation, shutting down leaves them at the mercy of Canada's hydro electric generation providers. That said, environmentally this isn't a huge issue, probably didn't release more than a curie of radiation before they put containment procedures into effect.