I have discussed the fact that nuclear reactors require an enormous amount of water to cool them in previous posts. This means that they have to be located near major sources of water such big rivers, big lakes or the ocean. Since many big cities are near large bodies of water, this makes such locations convenient for major power plants that supply electricity to cities. Unfortunately this also makes the reactors vulnerable to flooding. It was the flood waters from a tsunami that caused the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
Several different meteorological phenomena converged recently to create one of the worst storms to hit the New England states in a century. Hurricane Sandyhas taken at least thirty lives and wracked havoc from Virginia to Maine. The ferocious winds have blown down buildings and brought down trees. The pounding waves have flooded coastal communities and left million of people without power. The storm is weakening but the damage and flooding will take weeks to deal with.
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent out teams to monitor nuclear reactors in the path of the storm. These are some of the power plants that were affected by the storm.
Public Service Enterprise Group manually shut down its Salem Unit 1 reactor near Wilmington, Delaware because four of the six pumps that circulate cooling water were no longer functioning. A lot of grass and debris were brought in by the storm and could have clogged the water circulation system.
The CENG owned Nine Mile Point reactor near Scriba, New York shut down automatically because there was a power disruption in a switchyard.
Entergy Corporation’s Indian Point 3 nuclear plant in New York shut down automatically because there were problems with the power grid caused by the storm. The 911 hijackers flew right over Indian Point and could have crashed into it but they thought that it was protected by anti-aircraft missiles.
Exelon Corporation’s Oyster Creek nuclear plant north of Atlantic City, New Jersey declared an alert because of rising water levels in its water intake system. There was also a disruption in the switch yard. Three reactors were shut down as a precaution. Oyster Creek is the oldest operating commercial reactor in the United States.
These events illustrate some of the types of problems that extreme weather events can cause nuclear power plants. Interruption of cooling water systems and problems with the electrical grid at two of the most important. The response to this storm was swift and professional. There has been no indication that there was any danger to the public or the environment from the reactors in the path of the storm.
There were twenty six nuclear power plants that could have been impacted by the storm. With global climate change, we can expect more extreme weather events in the future. Following the clean up from Hurricane Sandy, it would be a good idea to review that extreme weather events pose for nuclear reactors and the response systems in place to deal with them.
Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant:
