Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working for a nuclear free world.

Deep Freeze Shuts Down New Jersey Reactor.

On January 31 the Atlantic City Press reported, “Below freezing temperatures shutdown Salem reactor.” The report continued, “Central room operators shut down the Salem 2 reactor at 3 a.m. after ice accumulated in screens used to filter out debris before water from the Delaware River is pumped into the plants,” a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official explained.

Joe Delmar, spokesperson for utility owner PSEG added, “Each reactor has six screens that move water in and out of the river and those pumps trip (shut down) when water isn’t pushed through the filters. There wasn’t enough water going through the pumps. We lost four circulating pumps within five minutes.”

Because Salem 2 shut down, the Salem 1 reactor then reduced power to 88%.

Jeff Tuttlel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, told the Atlantic City Press, “PSEG should invest in more environmentally friendly cooling towers at the Salem plant.” He said cooling towers create a “closed loop system in which water is drawn from a river, circulated through the plant, and then sent to a tower to lower its temperature before being reused. Tuttel called the current system “antiquated.” “Here we are on one of the coldest days and they had to stop operating,” he said.

Source: Atlantic City Press, pressofatlanticcity.com.

Three More Nuke Plants To Shut Down in the Chicago Area

On February 13, radio station WIFR of Byron, Illinois, reported that Chicago-based Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear plant owner and operator, will be shutting down its two-reactor Byron nuke plant”by 2022.” WIFR cited a report Exelon filed with the federal Security & Exchange Commission stating that the Byron plant is “showing increasing signs of economic distress, which could lead to early retirement.”

The radio report also said that two other Exelon Illinois plants, Dresden and Braidwood, comprising three reactors, could be headed for similar fates.

All these nuclear plants currently supply electricity to Chicago and Northeast Illinois.

In his 1996 book, “The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors,” author Jay Gould (along with other members of the Radiation and Public Health Project), had this to day about the Dresden nuclear power plant:

“The Dresden reactors are among the nation’s oldest civilian reactors, with the largest recorded volume of (radioactive)releases since the 1970s of radioactive iodine and strontium…

The six closest counties have registered an extraordinary increase in breast cancer mortality since 1950-54 when its combined rate was well below that of the state and the United States.

The current combined rate for the six counties, along with that for the 44 large neighboring urban counties within the 100 mile radius, is among the highest in the nation and includes the nearby metropolitan Chicago counties.”

Sources: WIFR, wifr.com; The Enemy Within, Jay Gould et all, 1996; The Radiation and Public Health Project, radiation.org