Nebraska Nuclear Plant Lost Cooling System After Fire

[stevedeshazer]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304778304576374011963022284.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

WASHINGTON—A nuclear power plant north of Omaha, Neb., on Tuesday briefly lost the ability to cool a pool of used nuclear fuel after a fire at the site, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

The NRC said the plant recovered cooling ability without activating backup systems and "temperatures in the pool remained at safe levels." The public was not in danger because the plant has been shut down since early April for a refueling outage, the agency said.

Spent fuel pools in the U.S. have received increased scrutiny after a recent crisis in Japan involving potentially overheated nuclear fuel and the release of dangerous radiation.

The agency declared an alert, the second of four emergency classes, at 9:40 a.m., 10 minutes after "an indication of fire" in a building at the plant. The NRC didn't disclose the cause of the fire. Automatic fire control systems activated and the fire was out by 10:20 a.m., the agency said. The plant is operated by the Omaha Public Power District.

Erm, uh, don't remember hearing about this....

[plumbob]

1. They were already under a level one alert because of flooding.

"After a thorough safety review, the plant was cleared to return to its level one emergency that was declared Monday due to flood conditions," the customer-owned utility said.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/08/nebraska.plant.alert/


CLEARED to return to its original EMERGENCY level.

Oh, yeah, this shit is safe, all right.












Right?