Midwest floods heighten nuclear power plant crisis

[DreamSmoker]

Source: COTO Report

Ft Calhoun Spent Fuel In Ground Pools, Flooded Already?

The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located on 660 acres (270 ha) between Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, and Blair, Nebraska adjacent to the Missouri River. This plant has one Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor generating 500 megawatts of electricity. In 2003, the plant had its operating license renewed for an additional twenty years, expiring in 2033.

Read more: http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/midwest-floods-heighten-nuclear-power-plant-crisis/

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Yes this is very real and has had absolutely no media coverage at at..
No Official statements, nothing..
So now we have our own Nuclear disaster brewing right in our back yard right now....

[MineralMan]

1. The plant is in cold shutdown

and there's no danger of any serious incident.

It's not a crisis. The plant is under a low level alert status.

www.nrc.gov

[Wilms]

4. Cold? What about the spent fuel which has to be cooled regardless of the reactor?

As long as the cooling system is not overcome, everything is OK.

Otherwise, the nations bread basket is toast.

[MineralMan]

5. Watch for the next few days. Then get back to me.

That's what I'll be doing, rather than sending out panicky posts.

[Wilms]

14. That's what I'll be doing, rather than sending out dismissive posts. n/t

[intaglio]

6. Nice link

... and we all know how neutral the NRC is toward the nuclear industry and how they have always come down hard on breeches of regulation.
.
.
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Oh! Sorry, they aren't and they don't.

[MineralMan]

8. Incident reports are incident reports.

I read them. Anyone interested in nuclear power safety should read them. They're information.

[girl gone mad]

9. Another physicist from the University of Wikipedia.

Maybe you should consider staying out of these threads, after having so wrongly advised people that low levels of radioactive iodine are safe based on the fact that cancer patients are given extremely high doses (to kill the thyroid tissue completely).

Just a suggestion.

[MineralMan]

15. And maybe not. I appreciate your suggestion, though,

and will take it under advisement. Then, I'll post as I see fit, just as you will. Thanks, though, for the gratuitous insult. I'm not a physicist, nor do I get my information about this particular event from Wikipedia. Instead, I got it from the incident reports filed by the plant.

[JDPriestly]

19. Hopefully there is no danger of a serious incident.

We still need to be alert to this. I know the area quite well and have many memories of it -- including the flood in 1952.

[MineralMan]

2. Further, this has had media coverage.

A Google news search will show it to you. It's a local story, not a national one, so the media coverage is primarily in the area near the plant.

[marions ghost]

17. Definitely should be

a national story.

Or maybe you prefer the runaway bride?

[DeSwiss]

24. "It's a local story, not a national one..."

I'm sure that if a meltdown occurs as a result of the flood waters shorting out the electrical wiring and fuses to the spent pool cooling system (as it has already done once), that the radiation coming from the plant will be limiting exposure to just the greater Omaha area. Only.

POINT OF INFORMATION: The river is still rising.

[nc4bo]

3. Well lookie there! So much water, such a tiny building in the midst of it.

*busts out the "I Feel Good", James Brown track. Why? Because I feel so damn good knowing that this situation is completely under control, they come in peace and no harm will come to any of us.

[enough]

7. Cold shutdown is irrelevant to the spent fuel pools. Those pools have to be cooled and contained

no matter what the condition of the reactor, "cold shutdown" or not.

Sorry, meant to reply to the post about cold shutdown, not to your OP.

[yodermon]

10. "Airspace Over Flooded Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Still Closed"

http://www.businessinsider.com/faa-closes-airspace-over-flooded-nebraska-nuclear-power-plant-2011-6

A fire in Nebraska's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant briefly knocked out the cooling process for spent nuclear fuel rods, ProPublica reports.

The fire occurred on June 7th, and knocked out cooling for approximately 90 minutes. After 88 hours, the cooling pool would boil dry and highly radioactive materials would be exposed.

On June 6th, the Federal Administration Aviation (FAA) issued a directive banning aircraft from entering the airspace within a two-mile radius of the plant.

"No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered by this NOTAM," referring to the "notice to airmen," effective immediately.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/faa-closes-airspace-over-flooded-nebraska-nuclear-power-plant-2011-6#ixzz1PT5W6C8g

[SpiralHawk]

11. Meanwhile, the Missouri River is a raging torrent of turds (R)

as sewage plants in Omaha and elsewhere cannot operate, and are dumping millions upon millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river...

[joeglow3]

12. A family friend is a Nuclear Engineer at the plant

He is not concerned.

[MineralMan]

16. Thanks. It's good to hear from someone who knows someone

at the plant.

[joeglow3]

18. np. The scary thing is we cannot get a straight answer from the ACOE

Every interview they do with a radio station here, they are so cryptic and offer no real information.

[divvy]

26. It is 5 days after this thread started ..... update

Extra precautions have been taken at Fort Calhoun - sandbagged the switchyard... Brought in an extra diesel and 3 weeks of diesel fuel... Installed a huge inner tube around the plant. They claim that their reactor building is water tight... Hope their turbine building and crib house are, too. These buildings contain equipment important to plant safety, too. It looks like they are well prepared, absent a tsunami from a dam collapse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/us/21flood.html

Every plant's emergency procedures are unique to the plant. Normally, an Unusual Event would mean that the plant has reached conditions that would warrant a shutdown, but Cooper has the option to declare the Unusual Event to get the emergency planning organization in place to facilitate adequate response to the flooding. I know the press makes it out to be a second plant in trouble, but the plant is in the same condition before and after the declaration. Cooper is just being conservative and I am sure they have been doing a lot of the same things as Fort Calhoun all along.

There isn't much news from Fukushima... Nothing on whether not they can make water filters work... Running out of time there.

[DeSwiss]

13. K&R n/t

[Omaha Steve]

20. My mom lives a 15 minute drive from the plant

We know somebody inside the plant. Things are bad and they aren't telling us!

Marta and I live just over 30 miles South from the plant.

[DeSwiss]

21. Photo of plant taken yesterday......

- Things are worse than bad. And they aren't ever going to tell the truth about this nuclear power plant stupidity, because there would rioting in the streets if they did.

[wordpix]

23. unfortunately, these nukes need to be built on the edge of a river or seashore

in the flood zone :puke:

They are definitely more trouble and cost more money than they're worth.

[NutmegYankee]

25. Most power plants do:

Any plant with a steam cycle needs to dump the heat to condense the steam back to water. The cooler the sink, the higher the efficiency. The large cooling towers that we associate with nuclear is also seen in large coal or natural gas plants that don't have a local heat sink (river or ocean).

[marions ghost]

22. Keep us posted

what they are saying on the local news there.

Are you amazed that this is not national news?

Usually the slightest power outage or industrial incident is reported. Not a good sign, I would say.