Astonishing tower collapse screams "No New Nukes!!"

August 27, 2007

A cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power plant has collapsed.

A broken 54" pipe there has spewed 350,000 gallons per minute of contaminated, overheated water into the Earth. "The river water piping and the series of screens and supports failed," said a company spokesman. They "fell to the ground."

The public and media were barred from viewing the wreckage for three days. But when a Congressional Energy Bill conference committee takes up Senate-approved loan guarantees for building new nukes this fall, what will reactor backers say about this latest pile of radioactive rubble?

This kind of event can make even hardened nuke opponents pinch themselves and read the descriptions twice. Who could make this up?

Vermont Yankee has been in operation---more or less---since the early 1970s. Its owner is Entergy, a multi-reactor "McNuke" operator that last year got approval to up VY's output by 20%.

Required inspections revealed worrisome cracks and other structural problems. Entergy dismissed all that, but was forced to issue a "ratepayer protection policy" against incidents caused by the power increase. The guarantee expired earlier this month, not long before the collapse.

The tower came down amidst angry negotiations between Entergy and plant workers. A strike was barely averted, but VY's labor troubles are by no means over.

The reactor's output has now been slashed 50%. A public battle is raging over whether it can dump water even hotter than usual into the Connecticut River. Reactors in Alabama, France and elsewhere have been forced shut because the rivers that cool them have exceeded 90 degrees.

Yankee's cooling system, vintage 1972, centers on 22 (now 21) wood, fiberglass and metal towers that stretch for 300 feet, and are 50 feet high and 40 feet wide. The company calls this giant rig a "rain forest."

Operators admit to hearing "strange sounds" coming from its fans last week, but say Tuesday's collapse was unexpected.

Nuclear opponents who warned about such an event have been scorned by Entergy and its supporters. That something as apparently absurd as the spontaneous collapse of an entire cooling tower could actually occur underlines America's Keystone Kops reality of atomic operation and regulation. "We need to understand what happened," explains the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Diane Screnci.

So does Congress. A definitive Conference Committee battle will be fought after Labor Day over an Energy Bill that includes taxpayer guarantees for $50 billion and more to build new nukes.

Meanwhile Vermonters will pay for this latest pile of radioactive reactor rubble. Maybe a "fall foliage" field trip to the Green Mountain State would do the Congress some good.

--
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA: OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is available at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and senior editor of Freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

Vermont Yankee cooling tower catastrophic failure

The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
Ruling out sabotage, I wonder if the NRC and Homeland Security will consider Entergy to be managed by fools and termites lol

This is serious, nuclear catastrophic accidents shouldn't be left for hindsight...why aren't the regulatory authorities investigating the entire nuclear industry...because they rely on self-reporting by the nuclear industry...that is like asking the fox in the henhouse, how many chickens he ate...

My Personal Agenda Against South Dakota Abandoned Uranium Mines

My Personal Mission against Uranium Mining and the Nuclear Industry

1. To demand the comprehensive and total clean up of abandoned uranium mines with the Slim Buttes and Cave Hills, and not just one at a time as the US Forest Service is stating it is doing.

2. To consider the negative health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation exposure through surface water, ground water and air transport; especially as this has been occurring to my community Rock Creek (Bullhead, SD). We feel that the US Forest Service's negligence of considering the Rock Creek communities concern that the uranium mines are causing extreme health crises within the community is tantamount to genocide and racism.

3. To revise the US Forest Service Sioux Oil and Gas Leasing Final Environmental Impact Statement to either start an Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement or start the EIS process anew to include tribal communities' extreme health concerns. This is our main point that the US Forest Service although hearing testimony from Rock Creek community members about their increasing rates of cancer, birth problems, and diabetes, they didn't include this in the FEIS and replied that the commenting period is over. They were told numerous times about what the sickness and deaths happening downstream, yet they purposefully ignore our concerns. This too is genocide and racism!

4. We demand that all current leases involving uranium, oil, gas as well as other mineral resources be outlawed in the Slim Buttes and Cave Hills and those existing outstanding leases be allowed to expire without renewal of these leases.

5. We demand that the name of the Custer National Forest be changed to Crazy Horse National Forest; this is upon the advice of the story told to LaDonna Brave Bull-Allard by Johnson Holy Rock and Elaine Quiver: that the Slim Buttes and Cave Hills was one of Crazy Horse's favorite places and is part of the Powder River basin that as a condition of his surrender would be his permanent reservation. For this he was murdered at Fort Robinson.

6. We demand that the Sioux Ranger District be renamed Paha Zizipila as this is its true Lakota name.

The Contest Begins in Earnest

As we enter this new day in the Nuclear Renaissance in which a majority of the herd are hoping foolishly that nuclear energy will save us from the inevitable meltdown of our climate, I feel that more public involvement is needed from a more independent perspective, namely ours, the Native Americans, Indians or the People you stole land from where your precious uranium lies underneath.

Our legend has it that uranium is Iya (pronounced EYE--EEE-YAA); it is a black monster, a brother to Iktomi, the trickster. Since Iya eats people from the inside as does cancer, Inyan Hokshila (Stone Boy) buried deep under the earth to protect people from the black monster. Iya is an ancient spirit, also kin to the Unktehila (dinosaurs) and Unkcegila (cavemen), who also ate people. From our perspective, we feel that Inyan Hoksila walks with us and he does because he is me.

As one that has been fighting Iya for 11 years alone, gathering my resources for this day when they will be useful to all that need this; I have lost many precious people to Iya, to cancer. My parents passed on long ago, my relatives passed on long ago and I am alone.

These are my words, not parroted from some white person or copied from some arcane website...the nuclear industry has a weakness, it is us, the Native Americans. They need us to accept again as did the Navajo did long ago their wishes to rape and desecrate our Grandmother Earth through mining and deforestation, polluting our precious water, killing our future...they have sent many lackeys, including their token Injuns under the name NAEG (Native American Energy Group) and even sometimes those token Injuns don't know they are token Injuns (they know who they are).

In our community Rock Creek (Bullhead, South Dakota) on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, we have chased down and booted out NAEG, chastising their lackeys for being anti-Native, exposing them for being nothing but bootlickers as they know themselves to be. NAEG offered wind power, solar power, oil wells and ISL uranium mining and each time our community shot them down, saying you are here to rip us off. Evidently NAEG thought the southern tribes of Pine Ridge and Rosebud would be ignorant but the moccasin trail beat them to those reservations and opposition has started against them; NAEG will fail!!!

As this relates to the nation-wide putsch in nuclear energy, the corporations are doing the same thing to the public, lying to them that nuclear energy will save us from global warming and catastrophic climate change! They even present animated maps showing the east coast underwater, glaciers melting, the polar ice caps disappearing. These are their lies they use and while it is true these natural events are happening, they have been happening because we are polluting our environment, killing our Grandmother Earth, not because we need nuclear energy!!!

The corporations are broke, they need government subsidies and loans to start building their nuclear reactors...most are heavily financed by debt and bonds. These bonds are coming due but they can't pay them since they don't have the cash! This is their weakness-if they don't get the loans and grants through GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) and if they don't get the cheap sources of uranium from within this country...THEY WILL GO BANKRUPT!!!

We need to form a common ground in the anti-nuclear movement to cause this to happen...if we are successful and I know we will be; these corporations will lose control of their stranglehold over their customers and giving the power back to the people where it truly belongs through cooperative ownership of electrical power!!!

We need to bring all facets of this issue together: mining, weapons, reactors, and waste! We do this and they will concede defeat!!!!! And our environment will be safe, our Grandmother Earth will begin to heal herself!!!

BAN URANIUM MINING
STOP NEW REACTOR LICENSING
OPPOSE GNEP
SHUT DOWN ALL REACTOR UP FOR RELICENSING

SHUT DOWN INDIAN POINT!!!!!

Asheville NC - Southeast Convergence for Climate Action

The convergence really rocked...gave me hope that, although the nuclear madness sickens me, that somewhere out there a group of young people are slamming down corporatism!!!

kudos to them!!!!

Maps and more maps - lost in a nuclear maze

After looking at the following maps and what they signify, you'll coming to the conclusion that nuclear renaissance is a feint meant to distract the public from their true objectives which, in my opinion is storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Most of the spent nuclear fuel is being stored mainly in the eastern half of the United States as shown the maps below. Then if you consider that this area is also where most of the nuclear reactors are located while the rest of the country only has a few reactors in their backyards. This squeeze play comes about after the Barnwell nuclear waste storage closes its door to all the states except for New Jersey, South Carolina and Connecticut.

Locations of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations



Map of Power Reactor Sites



Locations of Uranium Milling Facilities




Nuclear Waste Transportation Routes



Finally this map reinforces my theory that the nuclear renaissance is another chic word like global warming. If you notice on a previous map the Southeast has the highest concentrations of nuclear reactors but on this map the Southeast is not pursuing clean energy as a goal. In other words they'd rather take the chance of a major catastrophic failure at one of their nuclear reactors than to contribute in reducing global warming and reduce the amount of nuclear waste.

Is this risk worth it?

Renewable Electricity Standards at Work in the States



Now to end this, I feel that in Congress the southeastern states are a self-serving voting bloc while the western, northeastern and midwest states are not as organized and therefore cannot win any major concessions on clean renewable energy and probably can't stop the upcoming federal subsidies and loan guarantees promoting the nuclear energy industry.

James Lovelock and the big bang

Green Left - James Lovelock and the big bang

Jim Green
3 August 2007

British scientist James Lovelock, famous for his Gaia theory of the earth as a self-regulating organism, was in Adelaide on July 7-8, speaking at the Festival of Ideas. He has researched across a range of disciplines and has much of interest to say. But on the topic of nuclear power, Lovelock is inaccurate and irresponsible.

“Modern nuclear power stations are useless for making bombs”, Lovelock told the ABC’s Lateline program on May 30, 2006. That is in stark contrast to comments last year by former US Vice-President Al Gore, who said: “For eight years in the White House, every weapons’ proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program … if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal … then we’d have to put them in so many places we’d run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale.”

Which of these climate campaigners is right — Lovelock or Gore?

A typical nuclear power reactor produces about 300 kilograms of plutonium each year, sufficient for about 30 nuclear weapons. There is no dispute that this “reactor-grade” plutonium can be used in weapons, though the use of weapon-grade plutonium increases their reliability and destructive force.

Power reactors can also be used to produce weapon-grade plutonium, which is ideal for nuclear weapons. All that needs to be done is to shorten the amount of time that the nuclear fuel is irradiated in a reactor. This results in a higher percentage of plutonium-239 relative to other, unwanted, isotopes, such as plutonium-240, 241 and 242.

A typical power reactor can produce hundreds of kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium annually and just a few kilograms are required for one weapon as powerful as that dropped on Nagasaki.

The proliferation risks associated with nuclear power are not just hypothetical. India uses power reactors in its nuclear weapons program (although research reactors have been the main source of plutonium). Under a proposed nuclear agreement between India and the United States, India has announced that 14 of its power reactors will be subject to international safeguards inspections, but a further eight will not be safeguarded and can be used for weapons production.

North Korea’s nuclear bomb test last October used plutonium produced in a so-called “experimental power reactor”. The US uses a power reactor to produce tritium, which is used to increase the destructive force of nuclear weapons. The US has also published details of a successful weapon test in 1962 using reactor-grade plutonium.

Australia’s nuclear history also demonstrates the link between nuclear power and weapons. On several occasions in the 1950s and 1960s, federal cabinet received submissions arguing that one “advantage” of nuclear power reactors is that they inevitably produce plutonium that can be used in weapons.

From 1969 until his resignation in 1971, Liberal PM John Gorton pursued a plan to build a power reactor at Jervis Bay on the NSW coast. He later acknowledged that the reactor was to produce not just electricity but also plutonium for potential use in weapons. The Jervis Bay plan was scrapped by Gorton’s Liberal successor, Billy McMahon.

Nuclear power programs have indirectly supported a number of weapons programs by providing a rationale for acquiring uranium enrichment plants, research and training reactors, or reprocessing plants. Five of the 10 countries to have developed nuclear weapons did so under cover of a “civil” program: India and Israel use research reactors to produce plutonium for weapons; South Africa and Pakistan acquired enrichment technology and produced highly enriched uranium bombs; and North Korea used its “experimental power reactor” for plutonium production.

Iraq’s nuclear weapons program from the 1970s to 1991 illustrates the indirect links between power and weapons. Iraq never actually built power reactors, but its professed interest in nuclear power facilitated the acquisition of a vast amount of nuclear technology and expertise, which was put to use in the weapons program. It was later described in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as a “shop-till-you-drop” weapons program, with much of the shopping done openly.

According to Khidhir Hamza, a senior nuclear scientist involved in Iraq’s weapons program: “Acquiring nuclear technology within the [International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA] safeguards system was the first step in establishing the infrastructure necessary to develop nuclear weapons. In 1973, we decided to acquire a 40-megawatt research reactor, a fuel manufacturing plant, and nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, all under cover of acquiring the expertise needed to eventually build and operate nuclear power plants, and produce and recycle nuclear fuel. Our hidden agenda was to clandestinely develop the expertise and infrastructure needed to produce weapon-grade plutonium.”

Iraq’s nuclear weapons program continued until the 1991 Gulf War, yet the IAEA failed to detect it, or its use of “safeguarded” research reactors to produce materials used in tests of “dirty” radiation bombs. The Iraq debacle prompted efforts to tighten the safeguards system, but the current IAEA director-general, Dr Mohamed El Baradei, characterises those efforts as “half hearted”.

Nuclear power is the one and only energy source with a repeatedly demonstrated connection to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To deny that connection — as James Lovelock does — is inaccurate, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

[Dr Jim Green is an anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth.]

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Deep Ecology Renascence

After finding this in Google search, I began understanding that the modern environmental movement sets itself contrapositive to protecting the earth; being just another fad for sedating its adherents into a false sense of being one with nature. By commercializing the modern environmental movement, the would-be environmentalist is lured into buying T-shirts, refrigerator magnets, bumper stickers, organic clothing, "natural" foods and conserving electricity, gasoline and water: this clearly isn't protecting the earth from harm, instead these acts only devalue the effects of the root cause: the rampant destruction of our environment. In essence, the more unscrupulous industrial movement whose sole purpose is to ruthlessly exploit the earth's natural resources in the name of profit and God has found another resource to exploit through greenwashing, the unwary environmentalist.

Therefore I have decided to include this in my blog, but reluctantly; I already consider myself a man with a deep understanding of our environment and humanity. Seeing that this could be another label that isn't necessarily a bad label, it is a label nonetheless. Perhaps I just need to see if I can find others that feel the same way about this deep ecology movement and share with them the insights into our world that I was given by others that have passed on into the next world.

DEEP ECOLOGY

1) The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth; intrinsic value; inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.

For me this means that if we decide to exit this world through some fantastic catastrophic self-extermination such as nuclear combat or biochemical warfare, then the world would still exist. In other words, contrary to religious belief, this world doesn't belong to us, we belong to this world. We are its children as are all other living and non-living beings sharing it with us. We are also only have a limited lifespan as individuals, temporally we existed as a species only for such a small moment in time; our future depends on us understanding the further deeper outlook that long after we have passed into the other world, our works in this life should reflect this understanding.

2) Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.

Simply put, flowers are pretty, certain animals and fish are extremely beautiful. Our appreciation of these aesthetic qualities are also related to our understanding or misunderstanding of our earth. Each person, each individual has their own beliefs, emotions and insights into this, we hope that we share this same value.

3) Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.

To waste the earth's natural resources, to pollute our air, land and water is contrary to furthering ourselves as species; we should take what we need, saving more for our future. The property ownership concept negates this thought, profit should not be held for only one, rather they must be shared by all.

4) Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.

Oceans, lakes, and the ground water are being polluted at a rate that exceeds understanding; we need water yet we poison it thinking that it is limitless, can one make water pure again using your own hands. This is bad, but it is overlooked since all one has to do is turn on the tap. The water pollution must stop now or tomorrow water will become the currency of existence and of life.

5) The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.

Although this seems contrary to the rights to reproduce in vast numbers, there is a limit to our reproduction as is seen in Africa and Asia where overpopulation is causing their societies to war, to destroy themselves.

6) Policies must therefore be changed. The changes in policies affect basic economic, technological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.

As the leading nation in the democratric principles our responsibility as an example to the rest of the world is becoming tarnished with acts contrary to freedom and ecological preservation. The environmental laws are routinely subsumed as mere hindrances to the laws of environmental exploitation. We have to change this for the better or our existence is threatened.

7) The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent worth) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.

For myself, living simply while living happy is my ultimate goal; society dictates otherwise, causing sadness and sorrow, the overbearing sense of hopelessness...I am not perfect, I am far from it, but every day I get closer to this understanding that imperfection is only seen from the eyes of the other. With others we have shared this ideology that if we share each other's lives, we are making each other that much more perfect, happy without sadness, sorrow and the sense of hopelessness.

8) Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.

Once you understand what the foregoing tenets really mean, it is your responsibility to share them with others, hoping that out of the thousands there will be one that accepts these as their own. Many difficulties are there, but only in perseverance will you succeed. This doesn't meant that one becomes offensive in speech, this means that we walk together in this world.

- Arne Naess and George Sessions

The Convenient Solution

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/the-convenient-solution-20070718



A short film about climate change, energy and nuclear power. If you're confused about whether we need nuclear power to stop climate change, take nine minutes of your time to watch our new film. It doesn't just explain why nuclear power can't stop climate change - it also points the way to a better, cheaper, more convenient solution.

The mirage of nuclear power

The mirage of nuclear power - Los Angeles Times

The industry has never proved that it can deliver on its far-fetched dreams.
By By Paul Josephson

July 30, 2007

The mirage of nuclear power
The industry has never proved that it can deliver on its far-fetched dreams.
By By Paul Josephson
July 30, 2007

In the last two weeks, the Chinese signed a deal with Westinghouse to build four nuclear power plants; a U.S. utility joined the French national nuclear juggernaut -- with 60 reactors under its belt -- to build stations throughout the United States; and the Russians neared the launch of the first of a dozen nuclear power stations that float on water, with sales promised to Morocco and Namibia. Two sworn opponents -- environmentalists and President Bush -- tout nuclear energy as a panacea for the nation's dependence on oil and a solution to global warming. They've been joined by all the presidential candidates from both parties, with the exception of John Edwards. And none of them is talking about the recent nuclear accident in Japan caused by an earthquake.

These surprising bedfellows base their sanguine assessment of nuclear power on an underestimation of its huge financial costs, on a failure to consider unresolved problems involving all nuclear power stations and on a willingness to overlook this industry's history of offering far-fetched dreams, failing to deliver and the occasional accident.


Since the 1950s, the nuclear industry has promised energy "too cheap to meter," inherently safe reactors and immediate clean-up and storage of hazardous waste. But nuclear power is hardly cheap -- and far more dangerous than wind, solar and other forms of power generation. Recent French experience shows a reactor will top $3 billion to build. Standard construction techniques have not stemmed rising costs or shortened lead time. Industry spokespeople insist they can erect components in assembly-line fashion a la Henry Ford to hold prices down. But the one effort to achieve this end, the Russian "Atommash" reactor factory, literally collapsed into the muck.

The industry has also underestimated how expensive it will be to operate stations safely against terrorist threat and accident. New reactors will require vast exclusion zones, doubly reinforced containment structures, the employment of large armed private security forces and fail-safe electronic safeguards. How will all of these and other costs be paid and by whom?

To ensure public safety, stations must be built far from population centers and electricity demand, which means higher transmission costs than the industry admits. In the past, regulators approved the siting of reactors near major cities based on the assumption that untested evacuation plans would work. Thankfully, after public protests, Washington did not approve Consolidated Edison's 1962 request to build a reactor in Queens, N.Y., three miles from the United Nations. But it subsequently approved licensing of units within 50 miles of New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C. New Orleans had three days of warning before Hurricane Katrina hit and was not successfully evacuated. A nuclear accident may give us only 20 minutes to respond; this indicates that reactors should be built only in sparsely populated regions.

Finally, what of the spent fuel and other nuclear waste? More than 70,000 tons of spent fuel at nuclear power stations are stored temporarily in basins of water or above ground in concrete casks. The Bush administration held back release of a 2005 National Research Council study, only excerpts of which have been published, because its findings, unsympathetic to nuclear power, indicated that this fuel remains an inviting target for terrorists.

And more than 150 million Americans live within 75 miles of nuclear waste, according to the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. A storage facility that was supposed to open at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in 1989 still faces legal and scientific hurdles. And if Yucca Mountain opens, how will we transport all of the waste safely to Nevada, and through whose towns and neighborhoods?

Industry representatives, government regulators and nuclear engineers now promise to secure the nation's energy independence through inherently safe reactors. This is the same industry that gave the world nuclear aircraft and satellites -- three of the 30 satellites launched have plummeted to Earth -- and Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and a series of lesser known accidents.

Let's see them solve the problems of exorbitant capital costs, safe disposition of nuclear waste, realistic measures to deal with the threats of terror, workable evacuation plans and siting far from population centers before they build one more station. In early July, President Bush spoke glowingly about nuclear power at an Alabama reactor recently brought out of moth balls; but it has shut down several times since it reopened because of operational glitches. What clearer indication do we need that nuclear power's time has not yet come?

Paul Josephson writes about nuclear power and teaches history at Colby College.

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PPL creates nuclear post

PPL creates nuclear post -- themorningcall.com
PPL creates nuclear post

By Sam Kennedy | Of The Morning Call
August 1, 2007

A month after announcing tentative plans to build Pennsylvania's first new nuclear reactor in a quarter-century, PPL Corp. has assigned a high-ranking executive to develop a comprehensive nuclear strategy.

The assignment of Bryce Shriver, who has served as president of PPL's generation operation for three years, was announced by the Allentown company on Tuesday.

''We believe that nuclear power will play a role in the effort to address global climate change while ensuring that the U.S. economy has the power it needs for continued prosperity,'' PPL Chief Operating Officer William Spence said in a press release. ''PPL has a very good track record in the nuclear power business, so it is natural for us to develop a strategy that takes advantage of our knowledge and on-the-ground experience.''

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Oyster Creek N-plant still hopes to operate at 100 percent soon

Oyster Creek N-plant still hopes to operate at 100 percent soon

Oyster Creek N-plant still hopes to operate at 100 percent soon
By DAVID BENSON Staff Writer, (609) 272-7206
Published: Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The Oyster Creek nuclear generating station is still operating at 70 percent of power, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. But AmerGen hopes to be back at 100 percent in order to maximize profits in the developing heat wave, when consumers crank up the air conditioning.

The nuclear power plant had a forced shutdown about two weeks ago when an electrical glitch took out one of the reactor’s three feedwater pumps. While the Oyster Creek plant can operate with only two pumps, spokeswoman Leslie Cifelli said, losing one suddenly caused the plant to shut down.

Last week, workers managed to bring the nuclear plant back online, but the replacement pump vibrated. That meant they couldn’t take the facility to 100 percent power.

“Since then, they’ve been trying to get a third pump so they can get back up to full power,” said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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Entergy agrees to buy nuclear components

Entergy agrees to buy nuclear components - NewsFlash - NOLA.com

Entergy agrees to buy nuclear components

7/31/2007, 1:22 p.m. CDT

By ALAN SAYRE
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP)

— Still without a decision on whether to build a new nuclear generator in either Louisiana or Mississippi, the nuclear unit of Entergy Corp. said Tuesday that it had agreed on a major order for reactor components.

Terms of the agreement between Entergy Nuclear and GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy were not disclosed. Entergy Nuclear said the order would ensure that critical parts are delivered on time should the reactor be built.

Entergy has not decided whether to build a plant, but is looking at the sites of the current River Bend nuclear plant at St. Francisville, La., and the Grand Gulf nuclear plant at Port Gibson, Miss., as locations for its next nuclear generator.

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