Special nuclear inspection after cooling tower leak at Vermont Yankee
By Beth Daley
GLOBE STAFF
Nuclear Regulatory Commission structural specialists are investigating a Friday cooling tower leak at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.
The leak comes almost a year after a three-story section in another cooling tower partially collapsed at the Entergy-owned plant near Brattleboro.
 August's partial cooling tower collapse (AP) |
NRC officials said the tower leak is not considered safety-related to the plant’s operation. The tower cools water that cooled machinery in the plant before releasing it into the Connecticut River. Power was reduced to meet the plant’s water discharge permit standards, according to the NRC.
Vermont Yankee has two wooden cooling towers, each consisting of 11 cells.
“While Friday’s leak was not in the one cooling cell considered safety-related, we know there is significant public interest in this event,’’ said NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins. We need to “understand that Entergy is getting to the bottom of the problems…”
A call to Vermont Yankee was not immediately returned.
On Friday, Entergy officials discovered a pipe joint leaking an estimated 60 gallons per minute in a cooling tower. The leak occurred when a horizontal support beam broke away in the wooden cooling tower.
Minor cracks were also found in supports on two other cooling tower cells, including the one that partially collapsed in August.
An initial review by Entergy indicated that Friday’s leak was not caused by the wood decay that caused the August collapse, a press release by the NRC said.
Common sense and circumstance tells us this Yankee is at the end of its lifespan. Who of us is willing to listen?
Why is this even making the news? A cooling tower leak is minimal if anything. Service Water which cools plant components has absolutely no interaction with radioloactive materials as the system operates mainly in the turbine island for purposes of power generation. I wouldnt even consider this an event the whole article is laughable and rhetoric
Vermont Yankee is on the Massachusetts border near Brattleboro, not "near Burlington".
Actually the emergency diesel generators and all the emergency core cooling systems are supplied and cooled from the service water during summer ops.
It's a enormous increase in complexity with shifting from the towers back into the river cooling...say during the accident.
You know, there is no actual training....they don’t practice train the operators on this with the actual equipment, it's all done by simulator training. The simulator only in a rudimental fashion models the actual plant.
Near Brattleboro, not Burlington.
Actually, I live in Hinsdale NH...about 1.5 miles from the plant. I worked at Vermont Yankee as a licensed nuclear operator for 13 years...I was stationed on nuclear submarines.
Check out my whistle-blower legal suits' in the Department Of Labor. I am a well known whistle-blower.
Plant employees have contacted me about events concerning the tower, and nickle and diming maintenance budgets. Wouldn't be surprised if I helped get the special investigation...this is very rare event with bringing all this attention from the NRC over a non safety system.
We love it when they all tell us it's a non safety system...like the public believes that!!!
Why should we be comforted by the fact that the cooling tower leak is not a safety concern? We are concerned; if one or more towers are failing, what else is also in a state of disrepair? Do we need another failure to find out?
The pertinent fact is that the Yankee plant (like all US nuclear plants) has operated for decades without polluting the air, and without killing a single member of the public or having any measurable impact on public health. It also does not contribute to global warming. Meanwhile, US fossil power plants have been causing ~25,000 deaths every single year, and are the leading single cause of global warming.
What people should be concerned about is that if Yankee is shut down, its output will be replaced by firing up old, ultra-dirty fossil generators. Since these represent a health/environmental risk that is orders of magnitude greater than any risks related to the Yankee plant, the Yankee plant's closure will actually result in a significant increase in overall health risk for people in the region. It will also be costly. Running those old fossil generators will be very expensive, while continuing to operate the Yankee plant will cost very little.
NRC will never allow a significantly unsafe condition to exist at any plant (with or without life extension). As the record clearly shows, it never has in the past. No member of the US public has ever died, and it's been ~40 years!
Susan......the cooling towers are non-safety systems and are made of WOOD. It is disappointing that Entergy is not keeping them in good repair, but it is not a safety concern. Only 1 cell of the 22 cooling tower cells plays any safety role, and that is to provide a backup ultimate heat sink in the very unlikely event that the Vernon Dam fails and the Connecticut River falls to an unacceptable level for cooling. And that one special cell is reinforced and the others will break away if they fail due a seismic event or other cause.
Mike....a licensed operator for 13 years? You should know that of the available Emergency Core Cooling Systems (ECCS), only RHR is cooled by service water. Both Core Spray systems and the HPCI system are not cooled by service water. And service water need not go to the cooling towers at all - winter OR summer. Go to the Library and re-read the FSAR.
Also, rudimental is not a word.
Fire up those ultra-safe coal plants!
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
contributors
browse this blog
by categoryRelated Blogs
Organizations
Information Sources
INside Boston.com