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Nuke plant shutdown cuts power in Fla.
MIAMI - Florida's largest electric company shut down a nuclear reactor south of Miami for safety reasons Tuesday, causing sporadic power outages covering large portions of the state that could last well into the night. More than 3 million people are affected, the state says.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that the two Florida Power & Light nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point power point 30 miles south of Miami automatically shut down. Two other power plants farther north, the Crystal River reactor and St. Lucie twin reactors, in the state continued to operate, although officials at those two facilities noticed the grid disturbance. "We don't know whether the grid disturbance caused the units to shut down or that their shut down caused the grid disturbance," said Kenneth Clark, a spokesman at the NRC regional office in Atlanta. He said the two reactors were automatically shut down and in safe standby. "There are no safety concerns. The reactors shut down as designed," said Clark in a telephone interview. He said both reactor continued to have offsite electric power. He said two coal-burning power plants at Turkey Point also shut down. FPL in several media interviews estimated that power should be up statewide within 10 hours. The company did not return repeated calls from The Associated Press or speak to a reporter in the lobby of its Juno Beach headquarters. Outages appear to be concentrated in the southeast portion of the state, including Miami, but were also reported in along the southwest coast and northeastern part of the state as well as in the Florida Keys. The outages began shortly after 1 p.m. EST, though power in some affected areas had been restored an hour later. Posted by: tu3031 2008-02-26 |
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