Alabama TVA Nuclear Reactor shut-down since Friday due to faulty sensor

[Ian David]

GLIDE Number: NC-20070813-12905-USA
Date / time: 13/08/2007 17:32:22
Event: Nuclear Event
Area: North-America
Country: USA
State/County: Alabama
City: Unknow
Number of Deads: None or unknow
Number of Injured: None or unknow
Damage level: Minor

Description:

A TVA nuclear reactor remained out of service this morning after a faulty sensor caused it to shut down Friday — inopportune timing for a utility working to meet record demand for electricity.The Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in northern Alabama automatically shut down Friday evening after a sensor separated from a system that circulates water through the reactor.

In a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, TVA reported that an unknown amount of coolant system water leaked from the sensing line.

Spokesman Terry Johnson said such water is typically contaminated with a low level of radioactivity but that the incident presented no risk to plant employees or the public.Johnson said operators were in the process of restarting the reactor, although TVA does not forecast when out-of-service reactors will be reconnected to the power grid. Unit 1 had been online for 46 consecutive days before Friday’s shutdown, Johnson said.The outage comes as TVA works to meet a record power demand spurred by a heat wave in its seven-state, 80,000-square-mile electric service area.

The five weekdays last week represented the five highest power peaks TVA has ever seen, and the utility is predicting new record peaks later this week.“Right now, the Southeast is under quite a bit of heat and demand for electricity is pretty high,” Johnson said. “We’d prefer not to have it offline right now.”Unit 1 at Browns Ferry was restarted in May after a five-year restoration that cost at least $1.8 billion. The reactor had been idled since 1985

More:
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?lang=eng&cid=12905