{"id":4785,"date":"2013-07-19T09:52:43","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T13:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4785"},"modified":"2013-07-19T10:29:15","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T14:29:15","slug":"pilgrim-nuke-down-because-of-cold-heat-leak-when-does-it-ever-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/pilgrim-nuke-down-because-of-cold-heat-leak-when-does-it-ever-run.html","title":{"rendered":"Pilgrim nuke down because of cold, heat, leak: when does it ever run?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nDown in\r\n\r\nJanuary, February<\/a>, April, \r\n\r\nMay<\/a>, running low March and June,\r\nand now likely to go down because of summer heat,\r\nunder what conditions does Entergy’s Pilgrim nuke near Boston, MA like to run?\r\nEntergy also couldn’t keep the power on during the Super Bowl\r\nand\r\n\r\nstill has Arkansas Nuclear 1 down since a fatal accident in March<\/a>.\r\nTo be fair,\r\n\r\nmany nukes can’t handle heat<\/a>.\r\nRemind me,\r\n\r\nwhy are we building more of them<\/a>?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Pilgrim<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nChristine Legere wrote for Cape Cod Times 18 July 2013,\r\n\r\nSeawater temps too high for Pilgrim cooling<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nPLYMOUTH — The ongoing heat wave could force Pilgrim Nuclear\r\nPower Station to shut down, as soaring temperatures continue to warm\r\nthe Cape Cod Bay waters that the plant relies on to cool key safety\r\nsystems.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPilgrim’s license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires\r\nthe water being drawn from the bay to be no warmer than 75 degrees.\r\nOn Tuesday night, the temperature in the saltwater system reached\r\n75.3 degrees and remained above the 75-degree limit for about 90\r\nminutes.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIf water temperatures rise and show no sign of lowering, the plant\r\nhas 24 hours to completely shut down.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“The water temperature will be closely monitored as the heat wave\r\npersists,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan wrote in an email.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe temperature of seawater being drawn from the bay must be low\r\nenough to cool the water circulating around the reactor and\r\ntransform steam from the system back to liquid water.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAlthough the seawater is warmer when it is discharged back into the\r\nbay, it must not be so warm it affects the ecosystem.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe plant produces 680 megawatts of electricity, according to Carol\r\nWightman, spokeswoman for Pilgrim’s owner-operator, Entergy Corp.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“That is enough to provide power to about 680,000 homes and about 15\r\npercent of the electricity used in Massachusetts,” Wightman said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWhen asked whether Pilgrim has ever been forced to shut down because\r\nof rising water temperatures in the bay, Wightman said, “I don’t\r\nrecall ever having to shut the plant down for this.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWell, get used to it:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe rise in ocean temperatures is believed to be related to\r\nworldwide climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy issued a\r\nlengthy report this month on the impacts of climate change on air\r\nand water temperatures and how those changes affect energy producers\r\nsuch as power plants.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Nobody ever predicted the water temperatures would go up this high\r\nin the Northeast when the plants were designed in the 1960s,” said\r\nNRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nCape Cod Bay water temperatures stayed above the 75 degree maximum\r\nfor 5 1\/2 hours Wednesday, topping out at 75.4 degrees, according to\r\nPilgrim’s notification to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission late\r\nWednesday afternoon.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWith solar panels, hot weather means a few percent less efficiency\r\nand often more power because of more sunshine.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Down in January, February, April, May, running low March and June, and now likely to go down because of summer heat, under what conditions does Entergy’s Pilgrim nuke near Boston, MA like to run? Entergy also couldn’t keep the power on during the Super Bowl and still has Arkansas Nuclear 1 down since a fatal […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,14,104,73,89],"tags":[6672,6673,8719,5886,8704,663,8701,2077,8702,12,8737,351,8731,6686,1102,1401,709,8735,6685],"class_list":["post-4785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-economy","category-nuclear","category-safety","category-weather","tag-ano1","tag-arkansas-nuclear-one","tag-climate-change","tag-cold","tag-economy","tag-entergy","tag-georgia","tag-heat","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-nuclear","tag-pilgrim-1","tag-safety","tag-seawater","tag-storm","tag-summer","tag-super-bowl","tag-weather","tag-winter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1fb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4785"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4792,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions\/4792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}