HARD-TO-BELIEVE-BUT-TRUE DEPARTMENT
 
Entergy , a leading innovator in nuclear power generation, has apparently discovered a way to set a steam condenser on fire.  The fire was discovered yesterday evening at the down-for-refueling Grand Gulf boiling water reactor; burned for about 40 minutes before it was extinguished,  and, as required by regulation,  was duly reported to NRC.  It just goes to show that if you are determined and imaginative enough, you can set just about anything on fire.  If I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that probably some under-supervised earn-while-you-learn employees tried welding torches on plastic epoxy sealant, but you never know with a company as creative as Entergy.  Entergy is currently bringing its Vermont Yankee plant back up to full power after stopping up leaks in its steam condenser tubes.  No fires or explosions resulting from patchwork at the Vernon, Vermont plant were reported .  NRC EVENT REPORT FOLLOWS THE REUTERS ARTICLE BELOW.
 
Raymond ShadisTechnical Advisor
New England Coalition
Cell-207-380-5994

Entergy Miss. Grand Gulf puts out fire in condenser
Apr 12, 2012 7:29am EDT
April 12 (Reuters) – Entergy Corp extinguished afire in the main condenser
of its 1,251-megawatt Grand Gulfnuclear power plant in Mississippi
Wednesday evening, thecompany told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission in a reportposted on Thursday.  The unit has been on a
planned refueling outage since Feb.  20.   The operators at the plant
declared an “unusual event,” thelowest of four emergency classifications by
the NRC, after thefire was discovered at about 6:11 p.m. local time
Wednesday. Itwas put out in about 40 minutes. No one was hurt.
“The fire brigade was dispatched to combat the fire and thearea was
evacuated,” Entergy stated.      The cause of the fire was being investigated,
the companysaid.   ———————————————————-
PLANT BACKGROUND/TIMELINE
STATE:      Mississippi
COUNTY:     Claiborne
TOWN:  Port Gibson, about 60 miles west-southwest of  Jackson, the state capital
OPERATOR:   Entergy Corp’s Entergy Nuclear
OWNER(S):   Entergy Corp’s System Energy Resources Inc (90 pct)
South Mississippi Electric Power Association (10 pct)
CAPACITY:   1,251 MW
UNIT(S):    General Electric boiling water reactor
FUEL:       Nuclear     DISPATCH:   Baseload
COST:       $3.5 billion
TIMELINE:     1970 –      Plant construction starts – cost estimate $1.2                       billion for two reactors     1979 –      Entergy stops work on Unit 2 due to unexpectedly high costs
1985 –      Unit 1 enters service
2005 –      Entergy and NuStart pick General Electric/Hitachi  1,550 MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor                   (ESBWR) for potential new Unit 3 at the site
2007 –      NRC issues early site permit for the site
2008 –      NRC and NuStart file combined construction and  operating license (COL) application for the                  potential new reactor at the site
2009 –      Entergy asks NRC to suspend review of COL for potential new reactor     2011 –      Entergy plans to file with NRC to renew the original 40-year operating license for an additional 20 years
2024 –      Unit 1 license expires

Click Image Below to Enlarge

Grand Gulf NRC Event Report

Click Here to see Event Report
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/en.html#en47825

The short URL of the present article is: http://necnp.org/MPfQY