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Reactor Shutdown Darkens South Florida

Posted by kdawson on from the glowing-in-the-dark dept.

grassy_knoll asks, "So how fragile is the electrical grid, and just what technical problems could shut down five reactors?" "Five reactors at a nuclear power plant in Florida had gone down on Tuesday and two were now back online amid a massive power outage in the southern state, CNN reported. The report on the Turkey Point nuclear plant came as four million people had lost electricity in Miami and elsewhere in Florida, with traffic signals out and major delays on roads, authorities and media said."

2 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And what did nuclear have to do with it? by xaxa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You joke, but a few years ago my physics teacher showed me a video of a really dense part of a power grid (right next to the power station) when something failed and the power had nowhere to go -- the wires drooped, then glowed red/orange/white hot as they melted and snapped.

  2. Re:global warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The reactor shut down due to the no load condition. And they can't start it up for several hours due to xenon preclusion. If they didn't shut down the reactor it would have shut itself down due to the large xenon transient. This is common knowledge for nuclear engineers. If you lose your load on a nuclear reactor, you must shut down due to the massive xenon transient. If you are not familiar with this then you should read the reactor fundamentals handbook link above. This isn't rocket science.