Electrical Fire Knocks Out Spent Fuel Cooling at Nebraska Nuke Plant.

A fire in an electrical switch room on Tuesday briefly knocked out cooling for a pool holding spent nuclear fuel at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Neb., plant officials said.
The safety of deep pools used to store used radioactive fuel at nuclear plants has been an issue since the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in March. If the cooling water a pool is lost, the used nuclear fuel could catch fire and release radiation.

Fort Calhoun's single reactor has been shut down since April for refueling. The plant had already been operating under a heightened level of alert because of nearby flooding on the Missouri River, the NRC said. The cause of the fire remained under investigation this morning.

Source: www.propublica.org...

It is only a matter of time until disaster strikes at a nuclear plant near you, Wind farms produce more electricity at one quarter the cost of nuclear.End tax payer subsidies for nukes now.

Do you still think nuclear power is a good idea?

reply to post by smartbuddy


I DO think it is a good idea, just NOT Nuclear Fission!
Which is what we have right now.

Fusion reactors are safer because:
1) They can't "run away"
2) They leave few radioactive products when worn out.
3) They have no radioactive spent fuel.
4) They don't become dangerous if anything fails, they just stop.

Instead of preaching fear we should be concentrating on better technology!

The Lincoln Journal Star (local news paper in Lincoln Nebraska) has only mentioned there was a car accident the other day and a guy died from injuries sustained from the accident. There has not been ONE mention of the Fire. What are they hiding?

I don't see the problem here, it says they handled the situation before they even needed to use their emergency power supply.

And Wind power providing more electricity at a quarter of the cost? Hardly. Care to provide a link for that information?

How bad this flood is...

If anything this shows how safe nuclear power is. They said it would have taken 88 hours to boil away the cooling water, and they fixed the problem in 90 minutes. Sounds pretty good to me.

Please stop the nuclear power fear mongering, nuclear power is both cheap and safe and you know it.

Did you watch that video? do you see how close the water is? Do you see how much is there? Now add 5 more feet of water cause that's how much more they expect it to rise. If any ANY radiation leaks it effects Everyone on the River... from Omaha to the Gulf.


We are possibly watching the next major disaster...

I'm not fear mongering... if they loose the cooling pumps, they loose the plant, which is the downfall to all Nuke Plants.


BTW this is all based on what we are being told, cause ya know the news wouldn't lie to us... especially if Omaha Public Power District doesn't want people to know how close that plant is to being under water...

reply to post by SecretNebraska


Did you even read the article where it said the whole situation was under control in 90 minutes? And that no radiation was released?

Yeah I read that... That's NOT the point...


Watch the Video, and tell me where the next five feet of water is going to go... The river hasn't crested. They've had a fire. (that was not reported in the local news) OPPD doesn't want pictures/video of the plant shown cause it will put massive fear over those of us in range. Yeah they got that fire under quickly, but in the case of the Japan Incident it took only 3 hours to cause Irreversible damage. If that plant floods will we have the same issue as Japan. With failing pumps because the whole plant is submerged in a rushing river its gonna be hard to keep things in control. When the river finally crests all hell could break loose, and that's not fear mongering that's the truth.

From what I read over at the Japan declares 'nuclear emergency' after quake thread, it is pretty serious after 90 minutes without cooling because the fuel rods start to melt and generate heat. Although this article says there was no problem, it seems from the experts on the thread, that there will be problems due to the melting fuel rods.

I do not believe that the news released by the plant is truthful and I think that anyone who thinks that nuclear reactors are a safe way to generate energy either needs their head examined or else they are being paid by the nuclear industry.

How much worse does it have to get in Japan for people to realise that we are going to be suffering from this "accident" for years and years - thats if we can get past and survive for the next few.

There is a wealth of good solid information on the Japan declares 'nuclear emergency' after quake thread with many specialists with relevant knowledge. I realise that it is nearly 950 pages long now, but well worth dipping into.