Nuclear Plant Taken Down In Anticipation of Snowstorm

mdsolar writes Pilgrim Power Plant in Plymouth was taken offline in anticipation of the weekend snowstorm. According to a statement from Entergy, the owner of Pilgrim, the plant was taken off line in preparation of "a potential loss of offsite power or the grid's inability to accept the power Pilgrim generates." This is the second time this season the plant has been shut down due to storm conditions. On January 27 the facility was taken offline after the two main power transmission lines were knocked out by blizzard conditions. Although the transmission lines were restored within a few days, the plant remained offline until February 7 at which time it was reconnected to the grid.

Comments

A precaution when done ahead of time.

[Anonymous Coward]

An emergency measure when done after the fact.

Re:A precaution when done ahead of time.

[Luckyo]

The primary cause was the failure of backup generators that got flooded by the tsunami. Earthquake was actually not a problem - it didn't damage anything crucial even though it was a hundred times more powerful than what plant was built to withstand. Secondary cause was loss of all regional infrastructure, including loss off off-site power, loss of ability to easily access to plant to get replacement power from mobile generators and other similar problems related to logistical difficulty of trying to get cooling when entire region is devastated with over 30.000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced due to the massive flood. They had the plans, but having no easy access to anything in the region due to the massive flood made those plans impossible to implement.

mdsolar strikes again

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

He probably wouldn't post something about a 'renewable' going offline, based on his posting history.

Re:mdsolar strikes again

[Gadget_Guy]

He probably wouldn't post something about a 'renewable' going offline, based on his posting history.

What difference does that make? You are attempting to discredit this story by maligning the submitter. That is known as playing the man, not the ball. Nothing that mdsolar wrote was untrue, and it didn't even sound judgemental.

Rest assured that if a renewable power station went offline there would be plenty of other people who would submit stories about it, and I'm sure lots of them would have similar partisan posting histories (albeit with an anti-renewable agenda). The question is, would you write a similar complaint about those submitters or is it just those who fail to talk in gushing tones about nuclear power that incur your wrath?

Re:mdsolar strikes again

[AK Marc]

If the wind is that high, the snow won't collect on the solar panels that easily. It drifts off of high places, like roofs, and collects at fences and other things that catch the air. The stated combination won't happen as needed for the AC horror scenario to happen.

Re:mdsolar strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

1 foot of snow falls on top a solar panel.

Dead in the water.

Re:Devil's advocate of the Devil's advocate?

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

However, in this case, the customers don't lose power because the generation isn't there. Customers would lose power because the grid fails. Entergy has power from other sources or purchasing agreements to make up for this temporarily.

Similarly, it is unsafe (and illegal, technically) to run your nuclear powerplant with no access to the grid. If you have a coal plant that gets disconnected from the grid, you'd shut it down too with no way to generate revenue from burning additional fuel.

Devil's advocate to your misguided devil's advocate...The problem is the electrical grid not the source.

MDSolar must be disappointed...

[dfenstrate]

...that it didn't melt down. We get it, MD, you don't like nuclear power.