Palo Nuclear Power plant shut down, Not y2k related??

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Palo - A drop in pressure is apparently what caused Iowa's only nuclear power plant to suddenly shut down. It happened Wednesday afternoon at the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo. A spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a shutdown like this isn't a common occurance, but it happens occasionally at all plants. The plant's owner, Alliant Energy, says the shutdown came unexpectedly, but the automatic safety systems performed as they should. And no workers nor the public were ever in danger. The last automatic shutdown at Palo was in 1995. The plant should be back on-line in less than a week.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

Thankfully, John Krempasky has already committed hisself to his historical stats on reactor shutdowns duringn comparable periods. Therefore, as the number of shutdowns increase, Krempasky will get to eat latae sentatiae crow. AAAGH! AAAGH!

Thanks, John.

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 06, 2000.


Probably isn't Y2k related, but nobody's talking, are they?

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moyn (dtmiller@midiowa.net), January 06, 2000.

"It's not a Y2K problem," Cantrell said. "It's a 'this system is unacceptable' problem."

-- Beached Whale (beached_whale@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

We've lived next door to Duane Arnold facilty for more than 10 years. The fact that the safety systems functioned as required is indeed the single most important issue to Mrs. Rimmer and I. Whether or not it was a 'Y2K' problem, I doubt that we'll ever know. The only evidence I've seen thus far is purely circumstacial - i.e. this is a fairly rare event at Duane Arnold and the timing was, uh, shall we say, unfortunate. In most states in the US, such evidence would be quite insufficient for conviction on any charge.

Since this plant is our neighbor however, I would be very concerned if I thought that the plant was being operated in a negligent way. Even though we know that past performance is no guarantee of future safety, we made our decision to stay in our home prior to Y2K based to a large degree on the past safety record of the plant (not perfect, but no Chernobyl either), the seriousness with which we knew Alliant personnel were addressing Y2K, and things we were hearing from people who worked there.

Oh yeah, one other thing encouraged us. One of the senior engineer for the facility lives just down the road and he didn't put his property up for sale.

In an earlier post, I stated that our personal assessment included the following likely outcomes:

(1) Continued operation. We thought this most likely outcome and indeed it was exactly what we saw -- uh, at least for the first 5 days of 2000.

(2) Safe Shutdown. We thought that a safe shutdown of the facility shortly after the new year extending for 'some' period (a week? a month?, more?). But a safe shutdown didn't threaten us - at least not one in the absence of significant other disruptions.

(3) Something else. Could range from very minor containment releases (venting) to major problems. This is the only outcome where a real threat existed. But since we considered this the least likely of the 3 scenarios, we felt moving would be an over-reaction.

I'm not overly concerned at this moment but I'm not exactly overjoyed at this event either. No, we're not heading for the hills (or implementing 'Contingency Oh-Sh?t!' as Mrs. Rimmer calls it).

The plant has basically been a good neighbor in the time we've lived here. But I sure wish they'd stop jumping out of closets and shouting 'boo'. Halloween is still months away...

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 06, 2000.


PULEEESSE!!!

Don't DO that! Ya scared the 'you know what' out of me!

We live about 50 miles Northeast of the largest Nuke on the Planet, namely Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.

ALL three units were pumping at 95% of capacity during the Roll. Even at that reduced capacity, the plant is producing far more Juice than Chernobyl or St.Petersburg ever did!



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It ALL went away seven days ago .com), January 07, 2000.



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