Why is Plant Hatch Unit 1 running at well below capacity? Saturday 19 Jan 2013 that nuclear plant was at 100%, according to the NRC, yet Sunday it was down to 45%, then 40% Monday and 64% today. What's going on at Hatch 1? And what happened to nuclear supposedly being 24/7?
There's no event report about this from the NRC; the last item the NRC has on Hatch 1 seems to be from 2003. Southern Company provides no information on this event. Another source (Platts, 4 January 2013) says Hatch 2 (and Vogtle 2) are to refuel in the first half of this year, among Fifty-six US nuclear units to shut for refueling in 2013. But Hatch 1 is not on that list, and a similar Hatch 1 brownout happened 5 and 6 January:
Saturday | 2013-01-05 | 87% |
Sunday | 2013-01-06 | 100% |
Monday | 2013-01-07 | 99% |
Tuesday | 2013-01-08 | 100% |
Saturday | 2013-01-19 | 100% |
Sunday | 2013-01-20 | 45% |
Monday | 2013-01-21 | 40% |
Tuesday | 2013-01-22 | 64% |
Until a month ago, NRC's reactor status summaries used to include a "Reason or Comment" about reactors with less than 100% power, like this:
Crystal River 3 0 09/25/2009 DEFUELED - CONT. TENSIONING ON HOLD
Do people no longer need to know about those things? Or does it take NRC a month to get around to adding those notes?
Only 125 miles from here, why was Farley 1 at 93% on 19 January 2013? Meanwhile, 160 miles from here, Crystal River 3 (the only nuclear reactor at Crystal River, FL) remains at 0%, as it has since 2009. 200 miles from here, Vogtle 1 and 2 have remained at 100% for the past 30 days: congratulations! However, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 remain at 0% as construction delays stretch out and costs go up.
Somebody explain to me again how big centralized baseload power plants, especially nuclear, are supposed to be good because they're up 24/7?
-jsq
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