Reactor Shut Down at Controversial N.Y. Nuclear Power Plant
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo calls for a state agency to investigate a possible electrical disturbance.
A nuclear reactor at the Indian Point Energy Center in New York state’s Hudson Valley automatically shut down on Monday night because of an “electrical disturbance,” according to the facility’s operator.
No radiation was released due to the incident, and there was not any safety threat to the public or workers, Indian Point’s operator, Entergy, said in a statement. The shutdown occurred around 7 p.m. at the facility’s Unit 3, one of two nuclear power stations at the site.
There were early indications that the electrical disturbance was linked to an issue with a high voltage transmission line that carries power away from the plant to an offsite electrical switchyard, the company said.
The facility is located in the village of Buchanan, New York, along the Hudson River, about 30 miles north of Central Park in Manhattan.
Critics of Indian Point have said the site’s proximity to the densely populated New York City region creates unacceptable risks. They have also criticized the facility’s safety record.
Tuesday’s shutdown was the second to occur this month.
On Dec. 5, control room operators shut down the other reactor unit at Indian Point after there were indications that multiple control rods had been dropped due to a loss of power, according to an event notification report filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Control rods are an important safety system in nuclear power facilities, according to information published on Nuclear Power, a nonprofit website built by a group of nuclear engineers. The rods are inserted into, or removed from, nuclear reactor cores to increase or decrease reactivity.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Monday night that he had directed New York’s Department of Public Service to begin an investigation into the latest incident at Indian Point.
“We will make sure the safety of New Yorkers is not compromised,” Cuomo said in a statement.
Entergy is currently in the process of trying to renew its two licenses for Indian Point, which has operated commercially since the mid-1970s. The license expiration date for Unit 3 was last Saturday. The expiration date for the plant’s other reactor, Unit 2, expired in September 2013.
Writing in a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission blog post that was published last Thursday, a senior public affairs officer for the agency said that, even though Entergy submitted a license renewal application for both units in April 2007, a final decision about whether new operating licenses would be granted to the company “is still a ways off.” In the meantime, the reactors can continue to operate under their existing licenses.
While it typically takes about 22 months to reach a decision on a license renewal, the blog post noted that with Indian Point: “the process has taken longer than projected, due in part to the large number of contentions the parties have raised in the hearing.”
In July, legislators in New York’s Rockland County passed a resolution opposing the company’s license renewal bid. The county is located across the Hudson River from Indian Point. In making their case against the power facility, the legislators cited transformer fires that had occurred there, and said that the facility was built on a seismic fault line.
According to Entergy, Indian Point has a generating capacity of over 2,000 megawatts, which is distributed via the Con Edison system to New York City and neighboring Westchester County. The pair of nuclear reactors at the site is capable of producing enough power for roughly 2 million homes.
Bill Lucia is a Reporter for Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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