When the going gets warm, the nukes power down ,
Hot weather has caused more nukes to curtail power. Power has been reduced at:
MN: Monticello (Xcel)
MN: Prairie Island units 1 and 2 (Xcel)
IL: Quad Cities (Exelon)
IL: Dresden unit 2 (Exelon)
PA: Limerick unit 2 (Exelon)
Exelon's Zion reactor in Illinois also had some interesting heat-related damage. Hot-water related problems have also been plaguing reactors in Germany, Spain and France
Nuclear is not safe – if it was why have evacuation plans and potassium iodide ? (available next to the municipal building in Bratt at the state Dept of health
Nuclear is not Clean-If it was, then why the risk of radiation, then why the elevated fenceline dosimeter readings around VY at certain times?, then why was VY mandated to put up a concrete shielding back in the seventies to protect their neighbors from radiation coming off the turbine building. Why are they dumping 100 degree water – most of the generated heat comes off the reactor as waste heat… warming the river...?
Nuclear is not cheap. If it was local home and business owners would be able to protect their investments. If it was the cost of the storage and protection of the waste for 100 thousand years would be factored in making nuclear far more expensive than any other option..
Nuclear is not green and Nuclear is not the answer to global warming. In order for nuclear to meet needs of the electricity industry in the world to decrease carbon based emissions, there would need to be a new 1000 megawatt reactor coming online every 15 days between 2010 and 2050. If this were to occur there would need to be a new Yucca mountain repository of waste every 3 to 5 years to contain the immense waste. All this construction requires huge carbon based emission outlays.
Peter Bradford, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC):
The abiding lesson that Three Mile Island taught Wall
Street was that a group of N.R.C.-licensed reactor operators, as good as any others, could turn a $2 billion asset into a $1 billion cleanup job in about 90 minutes
An accident May 2nd at the Prairie Island nuclear power reactor site near Winona, Minnesota contaminated "about" 100 workers internally with radioactive iodine-131. The crew was far inside the reactor’s mis-named containment area when they were doused with the toxic metallic fumes. The Nuclear Management Company, which runs the reactor for Xcel, said the fumes were leaking from one of the system’s thousands of uranium fuel assemblies. None of the employees were wearing respirators when the gas "was inadvertently released on th eworkers and inhaled," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.