Reuters: Market News: U.S. nuclear watchdog to inspect Duke Catawba plant

Reuters: Market News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

U.S. nuclear watchdog to inspect Duke Catawba plant Apr 10th 2012, 16:25 April 10 | Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:25pm EDT April 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Tuesday it would carry out a special inspection at Duke Energy's Catawba nuclear power plant in South Carolina after both reactors there lost offsite power last week. The 2,258-megawatt plant is located near York, about 18 miles (29 km) south of Charlotte. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes. Unit 1 automatically shut when offsite power failed on April 4, while Unit 2 was already down for a refueling outage that started in mid-March. Both units -- rated at 1,129 MW each -- remain shut but are expected to return to service soon, power traders said. When offsite power failed, the plant's emergency diesel generators provided electricity to the reactors' safety systems, which operated as needed. Plant employees restored offsite power a few hours later, but the incident was still reported as an "Unusual Event", the lowest of four NRC emergency classifications for nuclear plants. "While there were no immediate safety implications, the loss of offsite power at a nuclear plant is always significant," Victor McCree, NRC Region II administrator, said in a statement. "We want to make sure we completely understand what happened and felt that under these circumstances, a special inspection was needed," McCree said. The NRC said the inspection team, due to start work this week, would consist of three inspectors from the watchdog's Region II offices in Atlanta. The team will, among other things, develop a timeline, review North Carolina-based Duke's actions leading up to the event and evaluate the company's response. The on-site portion of the inspection will take several days. A report documenting the results should be issued within 45 days of its completion. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions