…’cause otherwise I’d be concerned. Thanks to Larry Smith, Director of Communications for Vermont Yankee, for making us all feel better:
Operators at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant declared an Unusual Event at 7:05 p.m., Sunday.
The Unusual Event was declared due to a loss of some control room alarm circuits… Plant maintenance and engineering technicians investigated the… problem. During the event, the plant was at 100 percent power and was stable, Smith stated…
Update: even the state police don’t want to be too close to VY, in a report on their attempt to find a new barracks location:
According to a 2008 report issued by the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Buildings and General Services, both the Rockingham and Brattleboro barracks are “worn out, under-sized and have outlived their useful lives.”
The report found that sites near Exits 1, 2, 3 and 4 would not work because of their proximity to Vermont Yankee. In case of an emergency at the nuclear power plant, a command center near Yankee might have to be evacuated.
What I find most shocking is that, while the bright light of relicensing is shining on VY they keep having “unusual events”.
Seriously, if they can’t run a tight ship when they know everyone is watching and their ability to keep running is on the line, why should we have any faith they will be able to do any better if are relicensed and people stop watching so intently?
I Am Vermont Yankee:where the unusual becomes everyday
Do you suppose that given the NRC’s love of categories (they have four categories of emergency) an unusual event that occurred often enough might get promoted and reclassified to standard operating condition? But perhaps that is a demotion.
…wind turbines kill gajillions of birds, and solar panels don’t work when it snows, and, uh…
[NB: I know those are both lies.]
Standard operating procedure, more information comes leaking out after a couple of days
http://www.rutlandherald.com/a…