Limerick Generating Station
LIMERICK PA – What was described as “an electrical disturbance on the non-nuclear side of the plant” caused operators of Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Generating Station, 3146 Sanatoga Rd., to take its Unit 1 generator off-line Wednesday (July 18, 2012) at about 8:39 a.m., Communications Manager Dana Melia said. A cause, if known, was not announced.
The disturbance caused a loss of power to generator cooling equipment, according to Melia, and prompted operators to declare the occurrence of an “unusual event,” in keeping with federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission procedures. Unit 1 is expected to remain down until repairs, inspections and testing can be completed.
Limerick’s Unit 2 continues to operate at full power.
Exelon reported it had notified federal, state and local government officials of the event, which officially ended at 9:46 a.m. An unusual event is the lowest of four Nuclear Regulatory Commission emergency classifications.
Exelon also declared there was “no threat to the health and safety of the public” as a result of the power loss.
Other coverage:
- Unscheduled Shutdown at Limerick Nuclear Plant (Limerick Patch)
- Unusual event’ reported at Limerick power plant (The Mercury)
I always find it amazing that these annuncements are so couched that you really have no idea what really happened.
Why can’t the simply say we had a failure in the generators cooling system that resulted in overheat that forced us to shut down the generator in order to repair the problem. It was later determined that cooling efficiency had been lost due to inadequate coolant flow caused by a poorly functioning pump … That’s a fictional example.
Instead we the public get goobly-goop and never are told what the actual problem was / is and how they will prevent the incidents from reoccuring by additional inspections / actions or whatever.
Sometimes they forget that they’re located in one of the highest population densities and how many millions would be impacted by a true “reactor” emergency. Letting us know that like everything else they have maintenance issues and breakdowns is no big sin and would make people feel better about transparency at LNS.