Friday a reactor tripped off, and NRC got around to telling us about it today:
Millstone 3, 3.2 miles WSW of New London, Connecticut,
about half way between Boston and New York.
I hear a few people live around there.
That’s its second downtime in six months.
Why is nuclear considered reliable baseload?
Distributed solar power wouldn’t all be down at once,
and wouldn’t risk irradiating millions of people.
Here’s Event Number 49260: Continue reading
Down in January, February, April, May, running low March and June, and now likely to go down because of summer heat, under what conditions does Entergy’s Pilgrim nuke near Boston, MA like to run? Entergy also couldn’t keep the power on during the Super Bowl and still has Arkansas Nuclear 1 down since a fatal accident in March. To be fair, many nukes can’t handle heat. Remind me, why are we building more of them?
Christine Legere wrote for Cape Cod Times 18 July 2013, Seawater temps too high for Pilgrim cooling,
PLYMOUTH — The ongoing heat wave could force Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to shut down, as soaring temperatures continue to warm the Cape Cod Bay waters that the plant relies on to cool key safety systems.
Pilgrim’s license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires Continue reading
If you think of nuclear reactors as something far away, or as much safer than Fukushima, you’re in for a surprise. The most notorious reactors are the ones not yet built, units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle near Augusta and their famous financial boondoggle. But others are closer, older, and more numerous than you may know.
Here’s a map by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
That map’s not clickable, so here’s a table, selected from an NRC table by distance from Valdosta:
| Name | Owner | Where | Distance from Valdosta |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hatch 1 & 2* | SNOC | 11 miles N of Baxley, GA | 100 miles | |
| Farley 1 & 2 | SNOC | 18 miles SE of Dothan, AL | 125 miles | |
| Crystal River 3 | PGN | 80 miles N of Tampa, FL | 160 miles | |
| Vogtle 1 & 2 | SNOC | 26 miles SE of Augusta, GA | 200 miles | |
| Summer | SCEG | 26 miles NW of Columbia, SC | 300 miles | |
| Saint Lucie 1 & 2 | FPL | 10 miles SE of Ft. Pierce, FL | 325 miles | |
| Oconee 1,2,3 | Duke | 30 miles W of Greenville, SC | 330 miles | |
| Robinson 2 | PGN | 26 miles NW of Florence, SC | 350 miles | |
| Sequoya 1 & 2 | TVA | 16 miles NE of Chattanooga, TN | 360 miles | |
| Catawba 1 & 2 | Duke | 18 miles S of Charlotte, NC | 390 miles | |
| McGuire 1 & 2 | Duke | 17 miles N of Charlotte, NC | 410 miles | |
| Browns Ferry 1,2,3* | TVA | 32 miles W of Huntsville, AL | 410 miles | |
| Turkey Point 3 & 4 | FPL | 20 miles S of Miami, FL | 440 miles | |
| Brunswick 1 & 2* | PGN | 40 miles S of Wilmington, NC | 480 miles | |
| Waterford 3 | Entergy | 25 miles W of New Orleans, LA | 495 miles | |
| Shearon Harris 1 | PGN | 20 miles SW of Raleigh, NC | 498 miles | |
| * GE Mark I; Duke: Duke Energy Power Company, LLC; Entergy: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.; FPL: Florida Power & Light Co.; PGN: Progress Energy; SCEG: South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.; SNOC: Southern Nuclear Operating Company; TVA: Tennessee Valley Authority | ||||
Five operating nuclear power reactors are closer to us Continue reading