Over the last couple of years, the usual number of Nuke plants down at any one time was about 10. The last time I looked (around Oct 15), there were 30 plants down for one reason or another, usually as the result of a fuel outage or because some minor repair was needed. One third of the Nuke plants in the whole country down at one time for refueling when they only have to be refueled once in every ten years? Give me a break. No outages were Y2k related, or so they claimed.

But I had to reformat "C," and forgot to save all my addresses. Anyone know where that site is hiding?

-- Elskon (elskon@bigfoot.com), November 07, 1999

Answers

Can you get there from here:

http://www.gridwatch.com/

LINK

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), November 07, 1999.

Nope, no plant status info that I could find on that site.

-- Elskon (elskon@bigfoot.com), November 07, 1999.

Daily Event Report http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/DAILY/der.htm Plant Status Report http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/DAILY/psr.htm NRC Weekly Info Report http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NEWS/WIR/week3.html

M

-- meandi (Hopethishelps@nuke.com), November 07, 1999.

Thanks, that did it.

-- Elskon (elskon@bigfoot.com), November 07, 1999.

"One third of the Nuke plants in the whole country down at one time for refueling when they only have to be refueled once in every ten years?"

Commercial nuclear power plants have to refuel every 1 to 2 1/2 years, depending on the fuel used. You may be thinking about nuke submarines and other nuke ships, which have cores than can go much longer (not sure whether its 10 or 5 years).

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), November 07, 1999.

So who told you once every 10 years? Refueling is done every eighteen months. Outages are typically scheduled for spring and fall to take advantage of lower electricity usage. For those interested, www.nrc.gov has the daily status of every nuke plant.

-- nucpwr (nucpwr@hotmail.com.delete), November 07, 1999.

Factfinder: I should have known you'd beat me to it...

-- nucpwr (nucpwr@hotmail.com.delete), November 07, 1999.

You guys are dead right. I got that info from someone who works on our nuke submarines. I didn't know there was a difference so thanks for the correction.

-- Elskon (elskon@bigfoot.com), November 07, 1999.

Difference in design of the fuel pellets/plates themselves, in the enrichment of the fuel, and in the "physical way" the two kinds of plants are refueled - what needs to be removed, how easy it is to lift the hullplates off, the reactor core cover and pressure vessel cover, the refueling methods and cranes used, etc.

Navy (surface and sub) are good now for up to 15 years, but commercial plants are cooled down in about 36-48 hours, the core uncovered, and the core open for refueling in about 48-54 hours. After 50 hours from a refueling overhaul - the Navy hasn't even got the valve tagouts written to begin draining the steam plant, much less actually cut the hull and go into drydock .....

Refueling time for most nukes in 4-6 weeks; depending on what else needs to be done.

Last word I received from NRC and industry sources was that all nuclear plants (except two) are going to be finished and remediated by end of November....don't know which two are the left-overs.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 08, 1999.

Thanks for the info, Robert. Don't know too much about nukes - not my area of expertese. Get into ocean sailing and I'll hold my own, and I go back a ways. Was raised in the Philippines on my father's 186' square rigger (that was before WW2) and have been sailing off and on ever since. From what I hear, at sea is the best place to be in case of a nuclear accident, just wash off your decks and all the pollutants go to the bottom of the ocean.

-- Elskon (elskon@bigfoot.com), November 08, 1999.