NRC: 2 Reactors Shut Down At FPL's Turkey Point -Report (FL blackout update)

[jpak]

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200802261515DOWJONESDJONLINE000755_FORTUNE5.htm

Two nuclear reactors at Florida Power & Light's Turkey Point station in South Florida shut down Tuesday afternoon, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, The St. Petersberg Times reported on its Web site.

<snip>

It is unclear if the loss of power caused the massive outages that left millions of Floridians without power or if the outage caused the reactors to trip, the newspaper said.

"Turkey Point temporarily lost off-site power, and both reactors tripped," said NRC spokesman Roger Hannah, according to the newspaper.

The massive power outage left institutions and intersections throughout the state in the dark, the newspaper said.

<more>

[nels25]

1. I remember that when I served on Nuke boats

that if the tiniest thought of a problem existed they would scram (shut down) the reactors.

They did not take any chances.

The wrath of Hymie was to avoided at all costs.:hi:

[aquart]

11. "The wrath of Hymie"???

Rickover???

[nels25]

22. The one and only

I saw full Commander's in the USN shake in fear of receiving a purple letter (after every patrol the caption would submit a comprehensive letter to Admiral Rickover and his code 08 boys) which meant that the admiral was displeased with something and would not this in the margins with a purple pen or marker.

As admin types preparing a Rickover letter was a complete pain in the A^%!


:eyes:

[hunter]

2. Bzzzzzt. You jumped too quick it seems.

"A "significant equipment failure" at a substation west of Miami triggered Tuesday afternoon's blackouts around southern Florida, a Florida Power & Light official said."

Looks like they shut down the nuclear plants because the power had no place to go when the network failed.

[Brotherjohn]

3. This story says the nuclear reactor shutdown caused the outages...

Nuke plant shutdown causes massive outage in Florida
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-26-florida-power-outage_N.htm

That headline is on Page 1, not at the top of story, but the story has this (and had been updated around 4:15 Eastern time):
"FP&L spokesman Bob Coleman told St. Petersburg cable news station Bay News 9 that when the reactors were shut down, "the entire state of Florida began to run low on electricity." Power was restored in some places by early afternoon and the utility expected to have it fully restored by 6 p.m."

[hunter]

6. The sad state of science & engineering in the U.S.

When a spokesman of FP&L talks about electricity as if it is water in a pipe, something is very wrong.

Either he's a twit, or he thinks he is speaking to twits.

This sounds very much like a network failure that caused the plants to shut down. If there is a problem with nuclear power, it's only that it takes time to bring the plants back into operation after such an event.

First of all you have to figure out what happened. If there's one thing I know about U.S. electric power networks it's that they are astonishingly fragile.

[kristopher]

37. The vast majority of people are completely uninformed about the grid

It is nothing but a mysterious black box behind the switch on the wall. Pick ten people at random and ask them about it. Probe things like what are the local generating sources, how is it priced, how much do they use.

One of the best things we could do to encourage conservation is to more clearly identify electricity as a commodity that has a different value at different times. We have the technology to move away from the average/kWh pricing, but we don't want to spend the money to set up the systems.

BTW, I disagree about the fragility of the system. The problem I see is that the new laws related to unbundling electric utilities is that there is a shift in incentives. Before, when the public utilities were vertically integrated, they operated on a cost plus basis. That had drawbacks but the utilities were expected to strive for 100% reliability. With the move to a competitive pricing model, that goal of 100% reliability gave way to a level of reliability based on what the market will bear. This encourages all segments of the transmission and distribution sectors to cut expenses aimed at reliability until they experience a financial penalty that exceeds further cost cutting measures (for example, trimming trees for line maintenance).
That level of delivered service as measured by reliability is arguably much lower that that achieved under the cost plus model.

[CC]

4. CYA time for FL&P.

Both reports are out there. I would tend to believe the NPC over the company that caused the power outage. Even in the * regime. Now word may come down to those in the NPC to change their story to help out FP&L but it hasn't yet.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. How is that jumping too quickly?

Something went wrong. The reactors shut down.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23355118/

...

“We don’t know whether the grid disturbance caused the units to shut down or that their shut down caused the grid disturbance,” said Kenneth Clark, a spokesman at the NRC regional office in Atlanta. He said the two reactors were automatically shut down.

“There are no safety concerns. The reactors shut down as designed,” said Clark in a telephone interview. He said both reactors continued to have offsite electric power. He said two coal-burning power plants at Turkey Point also shut down.

...

[hunter]

7. A network failure is not a nuclear accident.

The word nuclear is there to sell the news.

Ooooooooohhhhhh..... nuclear.

[jpak]

9. Bzzzz - there is nothing in the OP about a nuclear accident

FYI

[jpak]

8. Bzzzz - what a stupid post - that's in the OP

and this...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-226power,0,7392346.story

<snip>

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that the two FPL nuclear reactors at Turkey Point about 25 miles south of downtown Miami automatically shut down around 1:09 p.m. Two other power plants farther north in the state, the Crystal River reactor and St. Lucie twin reactors, continued to operate, although officials at those two facilities noticed the grid disturbance.

"We don't know whether the grid disturbance caused the units to shut down or that their shut down caused the grid disturbance," said Kenneth Clark, a spokesman at the NRC regional office in Atlanta. He said the two reactors were automatically shut down.

Another NRC spokesman, Neil Sheehan, said three resident inspectors from commission at Turkey Point are following up on the incident, and their analysis is being monitored from the regional office in Atlanta and headquarters in Rockville.

<snip>

[hunter]

10. Ooooh, jpak said "nuclear."

The plants are engineered to shut down when the network fails.

The remarkable thing here is the fragility of the power network, not that nuclear plants were taken off line.

[ConcernedCanuk]

14. The power had no where to go? so they shut down a nuke plant? - don't think so.

.
.
.

I don't have to turn off my 4,000 watt generator cuz "the power has nowhere to go"

Shutting down a nuke plant is not a small operation - cuz there's a start up process that is not as simple as turning on a switch.

The plant would just simply idle, waiting for "demand"

I'll be watching this incident - I've been around long enough to remember 3-mile Island and Chernobyl

Nuclear can get nasty.

[hunter]

20. Think of it as a problem of inertia.

Comparing a 4,000 watt generator to a nuclear power station is like comparing a bicycle to a fast moving freight train.

The start up and shut down and start up procedures of nuclear power plants are well characterized. One might reasonably conclude the procedures are safe.

[Throckmorton]

32. Yes you do

We cannot handle even a 50% load rejection.

[hunter]

35. Hi Throckmorton! Nice to see you around.

:hi:

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Breaking: World's largest solar installation loses all power!

A spokesman for the plant, a Mr N. Copernicus, said they expected partial power to be restored in approximately 14 hours, and advised customers to burn natural gas in the meantime.

When asked why this was the 10th blackout in as many days, he just laughed.

[losthills]

13. Cool..... 2 down.

Now let's work on shutting the rest of them down.

[Nihil]

15. Go for it!

> Cool..... 2 down.
> Now let's work on shutting the rest of them down.

Just don't forget the cost of your "cool" moment for TWO nuclear reactors:
>> "... the massive outages that left millions of Floridians
>> without power ..."
>> "The massive power outage left institutions and intersections
>> throughout the state in the dark"

Oops?
The existing solar & wind resources didn't magically appear to save them?
Fuck it, it's only Florida ... now where are "the rest of them" ...?

Now I know that you are definitely NOT in favour of coal (see, I read your
posts!) but the only way to ensure that your "cool" moments don't result in
the burning of more coal (to make up the shortfall in power) would be
to close down ALL of the coal-fired plants FIRST ... that way the country
would be forced to use the clean generating methods of the future.

Like I say (without a hint of sarcasm): Go for it!

[losthills]

17. Thanks for reading my posts...

[Ordr]

16. .

As far as I know, nuclear power (including the accidents at 3-mile Island and Chernobyl) has caused far fewer deaths and illnesses/injuries than nearly all other major forums of power generation. I believe that can also be said for both local and global environmental impact, as well.

[losthills]

18. Actually, you are wrong on both counts.

Nuclear power kills on a daily basis under normal operating conditions, whether there are any accidents or not. We have published studies that show downwind cancer rates in this forum many times, as well of as lots of good information on the human and environmental impacts of uranium mining. I doubt if you are new to this forum, so I'm sure you've seen it. If a person was here for other reasons than spreading canned propaganda, they might ask themselves why every environmental organization is against nuclear power....

[Ordr]

19. .

I have indeed seen such data and the point still stands. I'm not exactly sure if you are offhandedly labeling me as a propagandist because of a viewpoint that I hold that is based upon scientific findings (much like your viewpoint) but that isn't the topic at hand. I wish I could find the exact study that I read that gave me the information but since I cannot, this article from Wired sums it up pretty well. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/nuclear.html

I, personally, am far more in favor of cheap, efficient solar energy. However, our current technology is woefully inefficient and prohibitively expensive. I am doubtless that it will stay that way, of course, as energy from the sun is the inevitable direction a technologically advancing civilization must use in order to prosper. Until then, however, we have to look at the second-best option which, I obviously believe, is modern fission power.

[NickB79]

23. Welcome to DU. Don't waste your breath with this argument, though

As many of us have pointed out to losthills numerous times here, coal kills over 1 million people PER YEAR, which is many orders of magnitude greater than even the Chernobyl accident. When asked to show us 1 million NUCLEAR deaths per year, he never responds, but instead simply falls back to calling you a Dick Cheney operative or some other ad-hominem attack. Your argument will fall on deaf ears, I'm afraid.

[losthills]

24. NNick knows as well as I do

that nuclear power is only providing us with less than 5% of our electricity, while coal is providing over 50%. If nuclear power were ramped up to a level to replace coal it would make this planet uninhabitable. The time to contain nuclear power is now, while we still can. The strategy of the lobbyists in this forum is already established, and never evolves: exagerate the hazards of coal, minimize the dangers of nuclear, and pretend that's our only two choces. Meanwhile, they ridicule and denigrate every piece of good news that comes out about solar and wind power. It's a stupid strategy, really, but apparently the job market for used car salesmen is down right now....

[NickB79]

26. Ah, another ad-hominem attack

Why am I not surprised?

"that nuclear power is only providing us with less than 5% of our electricity, while coal is providing over 50%. If nuclear power were ramped up to a level to replace coal it would make this planet uninhabitable."

Lets see, if coal supplies 50% of the electricity vs. 5% by nuclear, and coal kills 1 million people per year, that implies that nuclear kills AT LEAST 100,000 people per year if they are JUST proportional. Of course, you're implying that nuclear is WORSE than coal, so that means over 100,000 people per year must be dying worldwide from nuclear power.

And you have evidence to back this up, right?

And the next time you have the inevitable itch to stoop to school-level name-calling, I'm in the GliderGuider click for future reference; the NNadir click is so last week. Just thought I'd help you out with that :hi:

[losthills]

29. I think you doth protest too much....

You know that I won't get involved in a coal vs. nuclear debate. I've posted anti-coal mining petitions here a couple of times, and on other sites as well. How many die from coal and how many die from nuclear? No one can say with any certainty, but they are both killers, and both should be rejected.

If more people die from coal, and I'm not prepared to say that they do, then it's only because environmentalists have held nuclear power back for the last 30 years. I don't see how you can deny that if nuclear power were increased and coal were decreased that more would be dying from nuclear-- so what would we gain?

There is also the fact that we cannot yet count the deaths from nuclear power. We have not yet found a safe way to contain or dispose of the waste that it produces. We have no way of knowing what kind of civilization, if any will exist 4 0r 5 hundred years from now or if there will be any responsible party capable of caring for radioactive waste. That is reason enough to say no to nuclear power.

Glad to see you're following GG now, that's a step in the right direction. The next step would be to forge your own path.

peace...

[NickB79]

27. "exagerate the hazards of coal"

Why, that sounds like something a coal lobbyist would say. Hmmm, curious....

[Zachstar]

21. Where is the magic wind and solar to replace them?

Where is your fantasy magic losthills? Where are the solar and wind facilities?

[losthills]

25. If you actually read the posts in this forum,

you could answer your own questions.

[Zachstar]

28. No I said where is YOUR magic

Not your idiotic Anti-Nuke crap.

I want to know why YOU have not made the facilities of the many thousands of Solar and Wind turbines to replace these nukes. And the means to store the energy for use during calm or cloudy days.

Because until you can start making stuff appear out of thin air instead of expecting others to do it so the bunnies don't have to take nuclear rays (Oh NOES the bunnies!!111!!) you can shove that totally bullshit Anti-nuke crap down the toilet.

Nukes are the ONLY thing that gives a meaningful alt. to Coal and Oil. Until solar and wind get to a point where they can prove MUCH more per dollar of investment then it is pointless to fight nukes.

Why are you not giving tons of money (Hundreds of thousands atleast) to technology research such as EEstor (Aint it lovely that they are getting major bucks from Lockheed now? Just like the US Navy funding Bussard IEC fusion?) and Nanowire solar energy panels?

Again your stupidity in my view is aiding the companies EAGER to sell more Coal and Oil. It is in my view indirectly aiding the MANY deaths from the horrid use of Fossil Fuels. But you don't give a shit... do you? For as long as 2 reactors go down you are happy in my view.

Go post your crap on a fundie forum. Thank god there are people on DU fully willing to fight stupidity such as yours in my view.

[bananas]

30. How old are you? nt

[Zachstar]

31. Old enough to know what bullshit is...

You going to respond? or just keep throwing poo in a cage. Unless you too have magic to turn it into a replacement for coal and oil on a worldwide scale the post is crap...

You will quickly learn I could give a rats ass about politics and the spin being thrown left and right. Had this been 1995 and we still had a decade to weigh options then yes I would be supportive of an overall plan to make renewables so cheap to operate that it would be silly to keep running nuke plants.

So far there have been none and new technology to make it cheaper rarely gets enough attention. Yet when news about nuke shutdown happens we hear insane crap like this 2 down! bullshit.

The fundies do not care about net result. They have no reason to care about the fact that when nuke plants go offline surrounding coal and oil plants go to higher modes (Yes COAL AND OIL as energy from sun and wind are at full whenever they can and cant suddenly magically appear more energy)which indirectly will lead to the deaths of more and more as time moves on.

So where is your damn donations? Im tired of hearing about powerpoints about how sun/wind will suddenly appear out of thin air and how it will be just dandy for earth. Where are your donations to nanowire research? To energy storage research (Such as better fuel cells so that future solar and wind facilities will be able to output a clean stream of energy to the grid for upwards of a week if needed)

I believe that fusion research will lead to the best solution by 2020 yet you do not see me cheering for the death of our only massive stable energy producer which is Fission. Maybe it is because I know that it is the only well designed energy source we have right now. (Dont give me the spin about how good solar and wind are. Until you have super high output like the nanowires and a means to store it well then the whole thing is unstable and usually will favor only the rich.)

There are those here who are trying to get you to understand that the Nuke industry is not your enemy. The worst you can accuse them of is making stupid buisness decisions they are going to regret when fusion comes around. Till then you will not stop them and cheering for their downfall makes you look stupid. Why not focus on Coal and Oil companies who do not give nearly enough to renewable research?

[Throckmorton]

33. Right here

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2749522920080228?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true

[Zachstar]

36. This in my view shows the extreme need for better fuel cell and water breaking technology.

This is why this crap can't appear out of thin air. It needs to be able to deliver a great deal of power for upwards of a week to be considered stable.

It is just not time yet. The realist understands that we must support technology to reduce the manufacturing cost to the environment while massively gaining energy per dollar investment AND be able to store it later. I think I need to go find those topics talking about stuff such as Nanowire research for energy from the sun.

A good way to understand this is reading about submarines during WW2. The battery was EVERYTHING to a submarine captain. Battery technology was rapidly improved to allow for faster charging and longer stays under the waves. For when you were being depth charged... You needed your battery to pull you through till you could surface and run the main engines to charge.

[HelenWheels]

34. Is this real or are we being Enron-ed

I ask because as we wind down the bush/cheney regime the energy companies can see the writing on the wall - their days of ripping us off may be coming to an end.