Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant's Cooling Tower Collapses

Just one more example of why nuclear power is dangerous. From uranium mining to the dangers of energy production to the delimma of storing the waste, nuclear power is a bad idea.

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials want explanations about why and how part of a Vermont Yankee cooling tower collapsed earlier this week.
Vermont Public Radio

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials want explanations about why and how part of a Vermont Yankee cooling tower collapsed earlier this week.

Plant executives say they're trying to answer questions themselves.

Nuclear power opponents are distributed emails with photographs that they say show the damage at the Vernon plant.

The pictures show a 50-foot tall section of wall that's made of large plastic and fiberglass louvers. It's collapsed onto a fence and water gushes from a ruptured pipe high up in the structure.

(Sheehan) "The photos are pretty dramatic. There's no question about that."

Neal Sheehan of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the photos show the complete collapse of what's known as a "cell" in one of the two cooling towers at Vermont Yankee.


..snip..

The Vermont Public Interest Research Group calls the failure "breathtaking." James Moore works on energy issues for V-PIRG.

(Moore) "This incident calls into question all of the claims that Entergy Nuclear has made about the plant's clean bill of health and that it's operating like new."

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/vpr/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1136248

No one would ever defer, fudge, or otherwise screw up maintenance on any part of a nuclear plant that actually mattered, you know. :eyes:

The only place I heard anything about this at all was VPR.

A framework which supported hot water release pipes collapsed. That's hardly a nuclear accident, nor is it a "cooling tower" in the way that people typically think of them.

I live in Maine!

It's unbelievable there was nothing on MPBN or any of our local papers.

....or realplayer?

the audio works for me. did you try right-click and then download the mp3 file, and then listen to it? Sometimes that works better.

and even after serious lack of maintenance is made clear, the problem is downplayed and repairs are slow and insufficient.

We have 106 nuclear plants in the US -- and it takes 6 months to properly shut down a nuclear plant.

The fact that the "alleged" hijackers flew over a nuclear power plant on their way to attack the WTC towers -- Indian Point in Buchanan, NY -- raises alarming questions about what might have been.

Despite the public opposition to nuclear power plants, I think the GOP has succeeded in planning to add more????

Brittney Spears got a haircut

Vermont Yankee says plant is safe and stable after shutdown
John Dillon


VERNON, VT (2007-08-31)

Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams says the shutdown happened during a routine testing of a steam valve. He says it's not clear why the plant automatically shut down.

(Williams) "We have our plant technicians and engineers looking into that. The plant remains in a safe and stable condition and will restart only after a thorough evaluation of the shutdown is completed."

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/vpr/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1140100

Does it remind you of dialogue from "China Syndrome" -- ?

In fact, it just played the other night and I watched some of it --

Prophesy -- ?

I'll bet you couldn't care less about cooling towers at a single coal plant.

This is at the level of the "dangerous nuclear earthquake" in Japan.

The mumber of injuries is zero. 181 people could die in a dangerous coal mine collapse, and the world couldn't care less.

How do I know.

There is not ONE, not ONE anti-nuke who has called for the banning of dangerous coal mining with many hundreds of deaths areound the world because of collapses.

There is not ONE, not ONE anti-nuke who gives a rat's ass about the 500,000 Chinese who will die from air pollution.

There is not ONE, not ONE anti-nuke who understands the second law of thermodynamics...

How do we know?

There is not ONE, not ONE anti-nuke who has ever bothered to look at the cooling towers at the DRAX coal station in Britain and not ONE with the guts to call for shutting this coal station because it has cooling towers.

Here they are:



Unlike this Vermont hysteria, the coal plant will kill huge numbers of people during normal operations. There is not ONE anti-nuke who could care less.