From NEI’s Japan Earthquake launch page: UPDATE AS OF 11 A.M. EDT, THURSDAY, APRIL 14: To help keep radioactive water from diffusing into the ocean near the plant, TEPCO has installed an underwater silt fence in front of the intake screen for reactors 3 and 4. Radioactive water that has accumulated in turbine room basements is interfering with work to restore cooling operations at the site. TEPCO is completing preparations to transfer the contaminated water to the plant's radioactive water processing facility and other temporary storage locations. TEPCO continues to inject cooling water into reactors 1, 2 and 3 and to spray water as needed into the used fuel pools for reactors 1-4. TEPCO also continues injection of nitrogen gas into the containment vessel of reactor 1 to prevent the potential for an explosion of hydrogen that may be accumulating inside. Workers continued Thursday to move emergency diesel generators to higher ground to keep them safe from aftershocks and tsunamis, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum reported. An aftershock on Monday briefly disrupted electric power at the Daiichi plant, and a series of aftershocks has rattled the plant several times this week, causing no further damage. TEPCO also is rewiring the external power lines to avoid a total blackout. |
Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
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