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The Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County is about to undergo a major facelift. Improvements the company says are designed to increase the amount of electricity the plant puts out. The first phase of the upgrade or in industry terms "uprate" involves installing equipment to get better readings and allow the plant to operate closer to its legal capacity. Exelon officials say that could yield an improvement of up to two percent. Limerick communications manager Joe Szafran says the industry is focused on getting as much electricity as it can from the reactors that are out there and doing it more efficiently:

The Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County is about to undergo a major facelift. Improvements the company says are designed to increase the amount of electricity the plant puts out. The first phase of the upgrade or in industry terms "uprate" involves installing equipment to get better readings and allow the plant to operate closer to its legal capacity. Exelon officials say that could yield an improvement of up to two percent. Limerick communications manager Joe Szafran says the industry is focused on getting as much electricity as it can from the reactors that are out there and doing it more efficiently:

Limerick Nuclear Power Plant emits so much dangerous air pollution (in addition to radiation) that it's considered a major air pollution source under the Clean Air Act. So much for advertisements claiming nuclear power is safe, clean energy. Not only is nuclear power a threat to water quality and quantity, Limerick Nuclear Power Plant's Title V permit shows it's a major air polluter. November 14, 2008 there was a notice in the Mercury for a Limerick Nuclear Plant Title V permit renewal. This permit requires major air pollution sources to list all their air pollution sources. Since that time we received and reviewed the permit. We were shocked at not only what was in the permit, but also what was incredibly left out of the permit. The loopholes are unprotective and unacceptable. Almost anything goes. Radiation, the signature toxic at a nuclear plant, was excluded even though radiation emissions are regulated by EPA and reported by Exelon to NRC.

Exelon Nuclear has made it official, announcing that it intends to file a request to extend the license on the Limerick Generating Station for another 20 years. There's plenty of time. Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the first generator at Limerick is licensed until Oct. 26, 2024, and the second generator until June 22, 2029.

"Protestors from around the world and around the corner converged on Exelon Nuclear's Limerick Generating Station Tuesday morning to protest the world's continued pursuit of nuclear power. Part of a group called Footprints for Peace, about 21 people, some of them Buddhist monks and nuns, carried flags, donned gas masks, chanted mantras and banged drums outside the plant's main entrance at Sanatoga and Evergreen roads. Plant security were present, as were the Limerick Police, but there were no incidents and the protest ended as peacefully as it began after a little more than an hour. The protestors - who starting walking two months ago from the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. - arrived in Montgomery County via the Schuylkill River Trail and stayed overnight at St. James United Church of Christ on High Street."

I am writing this on April 26, 2009, the 23rd anniversary of the tragic and deadly explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster is widely considered to be the biggest technological and industrial disaster the world has ever known. And I am remembering the 1979 meltdown at the nuclear plant on Three Mile Island, about 100 miles from where I currently sit. Today, about a block from my home, I can look to the west and see the cooling towers of the Limerick nuclear power plant sending a steady flow of steam into the sky. Each month, the power company Exelon, which operates the Limerick plant, conducts a siren test to ensure that the noisemakers are in good working order in case they need to notify the public of an emergency.

Exelon Nuclear can continue with dumping as usual for another year, according to Clarke Ruppert, Delaware River Basin Commission spokesman. "The commission did approve the resolution. It was approved by a 4-0 vote," Ruppert said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon. "It is a rather complex issue. We want to give ample time for the public" to participate in the discussion. Exelon, which operates the Limerick Generating Station, has been dumping water from an abandoned Wadesville coal mine into the Schuylkill River and sending it back downstream for the past six years. The nuclear power plant in Montgomery County uses the water as part of its cooling process.

About a year after a security guard at Exelon's Limerick Nuclear Generating Station was fired for sleeping on the job, another was fired for altering his driver's license to hide the fact that he had been charged by police with three separate offenses.

The Limerick Nuclear Power Plant wasn't the source of radioactive sludge that was to be sent to two local landfills from a Royersford sewage treatment plant. The Montgomery County power plant was one of about a dozen clients that sent radiation-tainted uniforms to a commercial laundry that serves nuclear plants and nuclear-medicine facilities throughout the region, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection said Wednesday.

Waste Management has "suspended" plans to dump 750 tons of radioactive sludge at its landfills in Falls and Tullytown after news reports in the Courier Times. The landfill operator said it received a "surprising" public response to the project, which was authorized by both the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The radiated material originated at the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant.

A facility that cleans the uniforms of nuclear industry employees, including those at the Limerick Generating Station, is monitoring the buildup of low-level radioactive material in the Schuylkill River. UniTech Services Group Inc. has discharged treated wastewater into the Schuylkill River since 2004, in accordance with safety standards set by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On Friday, DEP issued a news release updating the public on its "field investigation," which began last summer in an effort to learn more about the possible cumulative effects of such discharges on both the river and its ecosystem.

Jason Kish's November 21 letter misses the point I made about Potassium Iodide (KI) pills. I wasn't referring to the effectiveness of KI pills protecting the thyroid gland from a concentration of radioactive iodine released in a nuclear plant disaster. The myth I referred to is the false assumption made by many that KI pills are the magic protector in the event of an accident or terrorist attack at Limerick Nuclear Plant, when in reality, KI pills would only protect one gland from one radionuclide. That inaccurate assumption is made because when handing out KI pills, the public is not provided with full disclosure of all the radionuclides that would be released in a nuclear disaster, for which KI pills will not protect us. It's time to tell the whole truth .

Jason Kish's November 21 letter misses the point I made about Potassium Iodide (KI) pills. I wasn't referring to the effectiveness of KI pills protecting the thyroid gland from a concentration of radioactive iodine released in a nuclear plant disaster. The myth I referred to is the false assumption made by many that KI pills are the magic protector in the event of an accident or terrorist attack at Limerick Nuclear Plant, when in reality, KI pills would only protect one gland from one radionuclide. That inaccurate assumption is made because when handing out KI pills, the public is not provided with full disclosure of all the radionuclides that would be released in a nuclear disaster, for which KI pills will not protect us. It's time to tell the whole truth .

The office that AmerGen Energy will use to give out information about a nuclear emergency at Three Mile Island moves to Chester County next week. The move means local news organizations will have to send reporters to Coatesville, about 65 miles away, if they want face-to-face access to plant experts. AmerGen will close the center in Susquehanna Township off Interstate 81. The location is the same used by AmerGen's parent company, Exelon Corp., to handle emergencies at its Peach Bottom and Limerick plants.

"This is in reply to the article "Power walk in Limerick." It's time for a reality check on nuclear power and green energy. The quick definition of green energy is that it leaves a small if no impact on the environment. 1. Some of the byproducts of a nuclear power plant are hazardous for 250,000 years. True it doesn't have smoke stacks spewing CO2 into the atmosphere but it spews invisible radiation. If you took a plane ride from Los Angeles to New York City, you would receive as much radiation as if you were getting a chest X-ray. This is from the "allowable" amount the plants can emit which is raising the background levels of radiation in this country."

"ACE believes taxpayer funding should go to residents and small businesses for solar and wind energy installations, instead of the wealthy nuclear industry. With solar and wind there's no perpetual astronomical waste costs, no security force, no government subsidized catastrophic insurance and no need for evacuation plans. In his April 30 letter, Ross Brady used meaningless calculations to support giving our tax dollars to the wealthy nuclear industry. Brady can defend dangerous, polluting, and costly nuclear power and attack ACE, but he can't silence ACE or make us move. I lived here over 40 years before Limerick Nuclear Plant started operating. I won't stop trying to prevent harm to our community's children and their children from Limerick's operations. ACE members care deeply about others. We don't believe anyone should have to leave their community for a safer life."

State Rep. John Galloway, D-140, has demanded that Waste Management "suspend indefinitely" any plans for radioactive waste at the local landfills and condemned the company for "seemingly deceptive" public notices about the project. Officials in Tullytown and Falls Supervisor Dorothy Vislosky also joined Galloway in objecting to Waste Management's plan to import 750 tons of radioactive sludge at landfills along the Delaware River.