What happened to Plant Vogtle’s new reactor vessel after

it was in a train wreck a week ago?
It went back to Savannah port and sits there unprotected and unguarded.

Thomas Clements wrote for the Aiken Leader 14 January 2013,

Vogtle AP1000 Nuclear Reactor Vessel Discovered Unprotected, Stranded in Savannah Port since December 15 Shipment Failure,

Tom Clements, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for the chronically delayed Vogtle
AP1000 reactor construction project near Waynesboro, Georgia sits
stranded and seemingly unprotected in the port of Savannah. The
special railroad car carrying the 300-ton vessel had unknown
mechanical problems on December 15 on exiting the port. The NRC has
said that the vessel only got one-quarter mile before a sound was
heard and the car stopped. Plans by Westinghouse and Southern
Company to move the vessel are unknown. It is also unknown if the
railroad car can be repaired and used or if the railroad company
which owns the line is concerned that the rail car might break down
again on its line in an in accessible place. Meanwhile, the
apparently unguarded reactor might be subject to sabotage and sits
in apparent violation of NRC quality assurance and “administrative
control” regulations.

The article includes links to several more pictures
taken 13 January 2013 by Tom Clements of

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability,
such as this one with the bridge clearly visible:

The special “Schnabel” car — its many small wheels
designed to spread out the weight can be seen in the photos linked
below—is sitting just north of downtown Savannah, hundreds of
feet from both the Savannah River ship channel and the Talmadge
Memorial Bridge which spans the river. The area on the rail line
where the rail car is believed to have failed is just outside the
port area behind a branch office of the Savannah police department
and between SE Lathrop Avenue and the U.S. Highway 17 approach to
the bridge, which looms to the side of the stranded reactor.

The Georgia legislature is in session.
You can contact

your legislator or the PSC today
about

toppling Southern Company’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool
and

fixing that 1973 Territoriality Law
so we can get on with solar and wind in Georgia,
for jobs and energy independence, and oh by the way clean air and
plenty of clean

water.

-jsq