Happy Birthdays Too, You!

Happy birthdays from the not so frozen tundra to mabfan, dubyathetumor, girlpirate and mevennen.  Glorious wishes to one and all!

Happy Birthdays Too, You!

Happy birthdays from the not so frozen tundra to mabfan, dubyathetumor, girlpirate and mevennen.  Glorious wishes to one and all!

Did Someone Say Intermittent Supply Problems?

One of the joys of highly centralized supply and grid-centric distribution.  When it goes bad, it can go really bad.  Almost 1400 megs out for a day or two.  If only we had bigger units . . .

Both FPL Florida Turkey Point Reactors Remain Shut - NRC - Reuters - 27 Feb 08

"Both 693-megawatt nuclear units at FPL Group Inc's . . . Turkey Point power plant in Florida remained shut early Wednesday due to the loss of off-site power on Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. That power loss was part of a blackout that affected at least two million people in South Florida, most for just a few hours.

In a release Tuesday, the NRC said both reactors at Turkey Point shut from full power in response to an undervoltage caused when two power distribution lines between Miami and Daytona went down following an equipment malfunction in a substation near Miami. The shutdown, like the cascading blackout that affected customers, was a safety measure to protect plant equipment from abnormal power line voltages.

The NRC said the reactors would likely remain shut for 12 to 24 hours."

Did Turkey Point Again Take Florida to the Radioactive Brink? - Harvey Wasserman - The Free Press - 27 Feb 08

"Nonetheless, Florida Power & Light now wants to build two more reactors at Turkey Point, at a cost of some $20 billion. The generators could not come on line until sometime between 2020 and 2025.

A request for 'Construction Work in Progress' (CWIP) is now before the Public Utilities Commission. CWIP would force state ratepayers to cover the cost of the reactors as they are being built. The PUC could make a decision within a month.

FPL may also seek federal loan guarantees, $18.5 billion of which were noticed in the federal Appropriations Bill passed in December, 2007. The Lieberman-Warner Global Warming bill, soon to be debated in the US Senate, may also come with hefty subsidies for projects like this one. Two more reactors have been proposed by Progress Energy for a site near one reactor already operating at Crystal River, near Tampa.

Little if any private financing is likely forthcoming for the proposed Florida reactors. But if CWIP or federal loans come through, they may be hard to stop."

Did Someone Say Intermittent Supply Problems?

One of the joys of highly centralized supply and grid-centric distribution.  When it goes bad, it can go really bad.  Almost 1400 megs out for a day or two.  If only we had bigger units . . .

Both FPL Florida Turkey Point Reactors Remain Shut - NRC - Reuters - 27 Feb 08

"Both 693-megawatt nuclear units at FPL Group Inc's . . . Turkey Point power plant in Florida remained shut early Wednesday due to the loss of off-site power on Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. That power loss was part of a blackout that affected at least two million people in South Florida, most for just a few hours.

In a release Tuesday, the NRC said both reactors at Turkey Point shut from full power in response to an undervoltage caused when two power distribution lines between Miami and Daytona went down following an equipment malfunction in a substation near Miami. The shutdown, like the cascading blackout that affected customers, was a safety measure to protect plant equipment from abnormal power line voltages.

The NRC said the reactors would likely remain shut for 12 to 24 hours."

Did Turkey Point Again Take Florida to the Radioactive Brink? - Harvey Wasserman - The Free Press - 27 Feb 08

"Nonetheless, Florida Power & Light now wants to build two more reactors at Turkey Point, at a cost of some $20 billion. The generators could not come on line until sometime between 2020 and 2025.

A request for 'Construction Work in Progress' (CWIP) is now before the Public Utilities Commission. CWIP would force state ratepayers to cover the cost of the reactors as they are being built. The PUC could make a decision within a month.

FPL may also seek federal loan guarantees, $18.5 billion of which were noticed in the federal Appropriations Bill passed in December, 2007. The Lieberman-Warner Global Warming bill, soon to be debated in the US Senate, may also come with hefty subsidies for projects like this one. Two more reactors have been proposed by Progress Energy for a site near one reactor already operating at Crystal River, near Tampa.

Little if any private financing is likely forthcoming for the proposed Florida reactors. But if CWIP or federal loans come through, they may be hard to stop."