Monthly Archives: March 2011

Vermont Yankee can’t find a buyer

Posted on March 31, 2011 by

This should come as no surprise, but Entergy has failed to find a buyer for its troubled and possibly soon-to-be-closed Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The news comes on the heals of an announcement and subsequent retraction of a power … Continue reading →

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Whistling past the graveyard….

Posted on March 30, 2011 by

As part of the industry campaign to minimize the danger of the Fukushima disaster, a number of industry flacks have written volumes to try to allay the public’s understandable fears. Then there was this. A Tokyo-based Western journalist wrote in … Continue reading →

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New EPA standard may force changes at US nukes

Posted on March 30, 2011 by

Too early to say if this will have an impact on STNP 1 & 2, but the Environmental Protection Agency just announced a new draft rule for power plants and manufacturing facilities that withdraw water from nearby waterways and do not have … Continue reading →

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TEPCO says four of six reactors at Fukushima will have to be scrapped

Posted on March 30, 2011 by

The Washington Post reported this morning: Four out of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were damaged beyond repair in Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, the chairman of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday. Specifically: He said … Continue reading →

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ABC News looks at safety of US nuclear plants

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

As a daily reader of Nuclear Regulatory Commission Event Reports, I was pleased to see that ABC News just finished a review of NRC records, and reported today: …there were 56 serious violations at nuclear power plants from 2007 to … Continue reading →

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It can get worse: Fuel at Fukushima 2 may have melted through containment

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

Terrifying report from UK newspaper The Guardian: The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising … Continue reading →

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TEPCO shares continue to fall

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

The Wall Street Journal reported within the hour: Tepco shares fell 19% to ¥566 ($6.93) on Tuesday, leaving them down 73% since the quake.  

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Shimane 3 ABWR start date may be pushed back

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

Reuters reported yesterday that the start up date for the Shimane Unit 3 reactor might be delayed: Chugoku Electric Power said it may delay the planned March 2012 start of commercial operations for its third nuclear reactor because engineers are … Continue reading →

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And this is from somebody who supports nukes….

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

In the middle of a piece in yesterday’s New York Times, I ran across this: “We can never say that that could never happen here,” said Anthony R. Pietrangelo, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy … Continue reading →

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Electrical fires at Seabrook, Nine Mile Point

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

Two East Coast nuclear plants reported small electrical fires to the NRC today. Yesterday morning, the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire declared an Unusual Event due to a fire in the Residual Heat Removal vault. The fire was in … Continue reading →

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