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Rare alert triggered at nuclear plant

By Kevin Cole

 Smoke in an electrical cabinet triggered an alert Tuesday at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant north of Omaha.

No flames were observed, and there was no damage to the plant’s nuclear reactor.

The plant shut down April 9 for refueling and has not been restarted because of Missouri River flooding.

David Bannister, the plant’s chief nuclear officer, said the smoke was caused by an overheated electrical breaker in a secondary building away from the reactor.

A fire alarm sounded at 9:30 a.m. and non-essential workers were evacuated from the building.

Following a safety review and a check of air quality, the alert was terminated at 1:15 p.m., and the evacuated workers were allowed to return. The incident is under investigation.

The Fort Calhoun plant had not gone on alert since July 1992, when electrical problems and a valve failure led to a spill of 20,000 gallons of reactor coolant water into the containment building basement.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110608/NEWS01/706089893

They are trying to keep flood water away from this nuke plant –A Nebraska nuclear power plant on the west bank of the Missouri River has declared an emergency because of the rising river. 

There is heavy flooding near the plant– http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/record-missouri-river-floods-keep-getting-worse

UPDATE   June 10

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Spent Fuel Pool Cooling System Stopped Working For Hours

Many people were scrambling at the NRC to cover up the full extent of the damage at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant following an electrical fire that stopped the cooling system to the spent-fuel rods. The NRC originally reported that the fire was detected in a switchgear room at 9:30 am, by declaring a Notification of Unusual Event. Automated fire suppression systems activated as expected and the fire was confirmed out at 10:20 a.m.Thursday this was updated to an Alert, with no recognition by MSM, because the cooling systems were down for multiple hours. . .  (more)

http://news.lucaswhitefieldhixson.com/2011/06/fort-calhoun-nuclear-power-plant-spent.html

Lucas Whitefield Hixon is on our SIDEBAR – he has many UPDATES on Fukushima.