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Federal investigators are examining what caused an electrical fault that shut down a nuclear power reactor at Indian Point 2 Monday night. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the plant went to "hot shutdown" at 10:42 p.m. Monday, which means the reactor coolant system remains heated and pressurized, allowing the plant to be returned to service quickly. "There's no danger posed to the public or the workers due to the shutdown," Sheehan said Tuesday. "The operators followed the appropriate procedures and shut it down, but there's still work to be done as far as what caused the shutdown and the complications that occurred." NRC investigators visited the site late Monday night.

Federal investigators are examining what caused an electrical fault that shut down a nuclear power reactor at Indian Point 2 Monday night. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the plant went to "hot shutdown" at 10:42 p.m. Monday, which means the reactor coolant system remains heated and pressurized, allowing the plant to be returned to service quickly. "There's no danger posed to the public or the workers due to the shutdown," Sheehan said Tuesday. "The operators followed the appropriate procedures and shut it down, but there's still work to be done as far as what caused the shutdown and the complications that occurred." NRC investigators visited the site late Monday night.

"Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has edged another step closer to its near-term goal of bringing the crippled reactors at its quake and tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant to a state of cold shutdown by January, as the temperature at the second of three damaged units fell below boiling point this week. The utility said it would be cautious on officially declaring cold shutdown had been achieved, however, even when the temperature at the third reactor has dropped significantly, saying the government and the nuclear watchdog would need to give their seal of approval to such a move. WHAT IS COLD SHUTDOWN AND HOW CLOSE IS IT? Cold shutdown is when water used to cool nuclear fuel rods remains below 100 degrees Celsius, preventing the fuel from reheating. But even when the temperature at the third reactor falls below 100 degrees, Tepco said it would not automatically declare that a cold shutdown has been reached."

The most recent shutdown of a nuclear reactor at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna Power Station also involved the accidental discharge of tens of thousands of gallons of cooling water into Lake Anna. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday's shutdown of Unit 2, caused by an electrical malfunction, also prompted the discharge of what was originally thought to be up to 59,500 gallons of cooling water into the Louisa County lake. The NRC said Dominion Virginia Power told the agency that it later appeared that the amount of discharge was actually closer to 35,000 gallons. Dominion Virginia Power also told the NRC that the lake water was tested after the discharge and was found to be within government-approved limits.

The most recent shutdown of a nuclear reactor at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna Power Station also involved the accidental discharge of tens of thousands of gallons of cooling water into Lake Anna. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday's shutdown of Unit 2, caused by an electrical malfunction, also prompted the discharge of what was originally thought to be up to 59,500 gallons of cooling water into the Louisa County lake. The NRC said Dominion Virginia Power told the agency that it later appeared that the amount of discharge was actually closer to 35,000 gallons. Dominion Virginia Power also told the NRC that the lake water was tested after the discharge and was found to be within government-approved limits.

The NRC has initiated a Special Inspection at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in response to a shutdown of the reactor early on July 12. The inspection got under way today at the plant, which is located in Lacey Township (Ocean County), N.J., and operated by Exelon. Among other things, the team of four NRC inspectors will be tasked with reviewing whether any equipment issues, design deficiencies, communication challenges and/or operator performance issues complicated the event. The Special Inspection will expand on reviews conducted by the NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to Oyster Creek immediately after the shutdown. Assisting the team on a part-time basis will be the NRC's Senior Resident Inspector at the plant. "While the plant was safely removed from service during the event, several equipment issues arose during the shutdown that we believe bear closer examination," NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins said. "Through this Special Inspection we intend to gain a better understanding of these issues, including the actions taken by plant operators in response."

"The Department of Energy has been given the green light to move full speed ahead with its shutdown plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program. A federal appeals court late Monday dismissed a request to freeze termination activities until later this year, after judges have weighed lawsuits challenging the shutdown. The order clears the way for the DOE to resume dismantling the Nevada waste repository program that the Obama administration wants to shelve. Remaining federal employees were given pre-layoff notices earlier this year, and the DOE was scheduled to issue a termination letter to the project's management contractor. "We welcome the court's decision," DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said. "It means the court agreed that the department can proceed with winding down the Yucca project responsibly while the litigation proceeds so as not to needlessly waste taxpayer money." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the repository's leading opponent, said the DOE "will resume shutting down the Yucca Mountain Project almost immediately.""

'Inadequate cleaning and flushing' of generator closed nuclear plant Broken generator's governor wasn't flushed adequately Southport | The 10-day shutdown of the Brunswick Nuclear Plant in September was due to inadequate cleaning and flushing procedures during maintenance of the governors on the power plant's emergency diesel generators (EDG), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report on its special inspection of the shutdown. "Since the licensee's cleanliness and flushing procedures were not adequate … the inspectors concluded that foreign material was likely introduced into the (emergency diesel generator) governor during licensee maintenance activities in April 2009," the NRC report said.

'Inadequate cleaning and flushing' of generator closed nuclear plant Broken generator's governor wasn't flushed adequately Southport | The 10-day shutdown of the Brunswick Nuclear Plant in September was due to inadequate cleaning and flushing procedures during maintenance of the governors on the power plant's emergency diesel generators (EDG), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report on its special inspection of the shutdown. "Since the licensee's cleanliness and flushing procedures were not adequate … the inspectors concluded that foreign material was likely introduced into the (emergency diesel generator) governor during licensee maintenance activities in April 2009," the NRC report said.

he Bruce Power nuclear generating station has shut down one of its reactors. The problem isn't mechanical -- it's because there isn't enough demand for the electricity generated by the station. Spokesperson Steve Cannon says the manufacturing slowdown caused by the recession and a cooler summer have left Bruce Power with a surplus. Cannon says a 795-megawatt reactor will be offline for at least a few more days and follows a brief shutdown in June for similar reasons. He says it's not something they like to do because nuclear plants are designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Cannon says the shutdown doesn't affect any jobs and that all other units at Bruce Power remain online and available for service.

The weekend shutdown of Germany's Krümmel nuclear plant has prompted political calls to close the country's oldest nukes over safety concerns The Krümmel nuclear power station near Hamburg was shut down on Saturday after a fault in a transformer, blacking out most traffic lights in the German port city and interrupting the water supply to thousands of homes. Power company Vattenfall said there was no release of radioactivity and no danger to the public as a result of the incident, which occurred just two weeks after the plant was restarted following a two-year shutdown caused by a fire in a transformer.

Phased shutdown is one of four alternatives unveiled in Department of Energy report WASHINGTON - State and federal agencies are recommending a phased shutdown of the West Valley Nuclear Demonstration Project, a process that will take 30 more years. Their report leaves many crucial issues unsettled, including which level of government is ultimately responsible for cleaning up the site and where radioactive waste would be shipped.

BAXLEY, Ga., June 6 (UPI) -- A Georgia nuclear power plant had an unexpected emergency 48-hour shutdown after a recent software update, company officials said. The shutdown, blamed on a cyber incident, occurred March 7 at Unit 2 of the Hatch nuclear power plant near Baxley after a Southern Company engineer installed a software update on the plant's business network, the Washington Post said Friday.

The companies that own almost half the nation's nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades an Associated Press (AP) investigation has found. However, Duke Energy, which operates Oconee Nuclear Station (ONS) on Lake Keowee, is not among those companies. Local Duke officials said this week that the firm has bankrolled $1.4 billion in a "decommissioning fund" and collects approximately $48 million annually under its current rate structure for this purpose. Duke began collecting the money in 1979, 15 years after it began operation at ONS. Initially, ONS was granted a 40-year license. A 20-year extension has been obtained that will keep the unit 1 and unit 2 reactors on line until 2033, while the unit 3 reactor is scheduled for shutdown in 2034. Just this week, site manager Dave Baxter told community leaders that thought is being given to seeking another 20-year extension. However, for now, Duke spokesperson Sandra Magee said ONS is operating from the premise that the reactors will go off-line in 2033 and 2034.

A former AmerenUE engineer is accusing the utility and the federal agency that regulates nuclear power of failing to adequately investigate a 2003 incident that led to a two-hour unplanned shutdown at the Callaway reactor. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation found that control room operators delayed a move to insert control rods - equipment required to keep the reactor shut down - since the error occurred just before a scheduled shutdown for maintenance. The NRC called the delay "not prudent," but noted it did not threaten human safety. After discovering the problem four years after it occurred during a routine review and alerting plant managers, nuclear engineer Lawrence Criscione claimed retaliation by his supervisors, including a negative performance review and the loss of his operators' license. Criscione was paid more than $500,000 in a confidential settlement in exchange for his resignation in 2008 and an agreement to not pursue any future legal claims against the St. Louis-based utility, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

The government opts not to pour more money down the nuclear "sinkhole" AP But not for much longer NO ONE should have been surprised when Canada's elderly nuclear research-reactor near Ottawa sprang a leak last month, prompting a prolonged shutdown that removes two-fifths of the world's supply of a medical isotope widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. After all, the government-owned reactor was fired up in 1957, the same year that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and Elvis Presley starred in "Jailhouse Rock". But the reactor's second unscheduled shutdown in as many years left health officials in Canada and the United States scrambling to find alternative sources of the isotope. Hospitals in both countries rescheduled thousands of tests and treatments.

After receiving the smallest budget in its history through the work of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump will be shutdown. "It's over with -- Yucca Mountain is gone," said Reid. The Obama Administration's budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year, officially released today, follows through on the president's commitment to end the failed Yucca Mountain proposal and instead pursue responsible alternatives for storage of the nation's nuclear waste. The project will have a budget of less than $197 million - a cut of more than $90 million from last year. Remaining funding for Yucca Mountain will be spent on the Blue Ribbon Commission examining alternate options and on phasing out work on the project in preparation for its final shutdown.

According to a plant report, the water level in the reactor vessel fell to 162 inches during the March 28 shutdown but a Fermi spokesman says he doesn't think that 'necessarily indicates that there was any loss of water level at all.' An incident involving a nuclear reactor going into "hot shutdown" at DTE Energy's Fermi II power generation station in Monroe County late last month went largely unnoticed locally and is raising questions about what exactly happened at the plant.

"The biennial shutdown of Davis-Besse nuclear power plant is bringing hundreds of contractors -- and their money -- to Ottawa County. "Every two years we shut down the plant to refuel the reactor," said Todd Schneider, spokesman for First Energy. "We're going to have about 1,200 contractors in the area during that period of time, plus about 100 additional First Energy employees in the area from our other two nuclear plants. They come and assist.""

The mayor of a mudslide-devastated city has urged a precautionary shutdown of Brazil's only nuclear power plants due to blocked highways while the death toll from flooding and slides rose to 75. Angra dos Reis Mayor Tuca Jordao said on Sunday that while the nuclear power plants are not damaged or threatened, mudslides that that have killed at least 44 people in his city alone have disrupted escape routes needed to cope with any emergency.

The mayor of a mudslide-devastated city has urged a precautionary shutdown of Brazil's only nuclear power plants due to blocked highways while the death toll from flooding and slides rose to 75. Angra dos Reis Mayor Tuca Jordao said on Sunday that while the nuclear power plants are not damaged or threatened, mudslides that that have killed at least 44 people in his city alone have disrupted escape routes needed to cope with any emergency.

"The moves for the scheduled shutdown of the Unit 1 of the Nuclearelectrica Nuclear Power Plant in Cernavoda (south-east) begin on this May 7, and the reactor will be desynchronized from the National Energy System, on May 8, Nuclearelectrica release informs. The planned shutdown is expected to last 30 days, while the plant is to carry out activities part in several main programmes such as the mandatory inspections programme, the programme for preventive and corrective maintenance, including the verification of the equipment and the repairs of those found dysfunctional or out of order and the mandatory testing programme, in compliance with the National Commission of Nuclear Activities Control (NCNAC) provisions, and which can be conducted only when the Reactor is shut off."

"- E.ON AG and RWE AG, Germany's largest utilities, may not get to run their nuclear plants past scheduled shutdown dates after Chancellor Angela Merkel's party lost control of parliament's upper house in a state election. The pro-nuclear leader of the Christian Democrats, punished by voters yesterday for her reversal on aid for Greece, may lose their hold on power in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. The party's worst result since World War II robs Merkel of a majority in the upper chamber in Berlin, limiting her ability to extend the lifespan of nuclear-power plants. Germany, the European Union's largest power user, plans to scrap a decade-old law that would have forced the shutdown of its nuclear reactors by about 2020. Merkel favors extended use of the plants to meet energy demand and cut output of gases blamed for global warming. An extension would bolster earnings for utilities with nuclear stations and forego spending on replacement plants. "

Energy Northwest has taken prompt and aggressive action to address a string of unplanned shutdowns, said Scott Oxenford, chief nuclear officer of the Columbia Generating Station. Tuesday night the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a meeting in Richland to provide the public with information about the Richland nuclear power reactor's performance last year. About 30 people attended. Because of the unplanned shutdowns, or scrams, the plant has been receiving heightened oversight. As of Tuesday, 29 of the nation's 104 power reactors were receiving heightened oversight because of issues. "