Saturday 14 April 2012

Troubled Michigan nuclear plant shut down for maintenance

edition.cnn.com
9 Apr 2012

Washington (CNN)--A troubled Michigan nuclear power plant cited for safety violations has been taken off line for maintenance and refueling, the plant's owner said Monday.

Palisades Power Plant, a 39 year-old facility located near Kalamazoo, has been under increased scrutiny from inspectors after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cited the plant for three safety violations. The plant is currently owned and operated by Entergy Corporation.

Officials are bringing in 1,165 additional workers to complete the scheduled maintenance, according to Mark Savage, a spokesman for the plant. Repairs include replacing 64 fuel assemblies, inspecting the reactor vessel head, replacing five control rod drive seals and inspecting steam generators, moister separators and heat exchangers. Entergy also said it plans to rebuild the main feed pump seals.

Violations at the plant included a September 25, 2011, incident in which half of the control room indicators were lost because of an electrical fault "caused by personnel at the site", according to the NRC. A special inspection "determined the plant failed to have adequate work procedures for the electrical panel maintenance work to ensure the job was done successfully", the NRC report said.

Additionally, the NRC cited Palisades and Entergy for an October 2010 incident in which an operator left his post unattended in the nuclear reactor's control room without permission. The Palisades spokesman declined to provide a timetable for when the work will be completed. "Due to competitive reasons, we do not discuss outage duration or planned time to return to service", Savage said.

Entergy operates nine other nuclear power plants in the United States. The news of a shutdown at Palisades came just days after Friday's report that California's San Onofre nuclear plant would remain shut down indefinitely until the source of problems with two of its generators can be determined.

0 comments: