Oyster Creek Powers Down to Fix Valves LCG, Aug. 15, 2000--The 640 megawatt Oyster Creek nuclear power plant began a deliberate shutdown early this morning when two reactor building isolation valves ceased performing their isolation function.

The precautionary shutdown is required by Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules. According to an Oyster Creek even report filed at 1:45 a.m., five minutes after the shutdown began, the plants reactor was required to be in shutdown mode by 7:04 this morning and in cold shutdown mode by 9:04.

Those times are based on the time the valves first failed to operate, which was at 3:04 a.m. yesterday. Plant operators have been working to restore the valves to operation.

On August 8, GPU Inc. completed its sale of Oyster Creek to Amergen Energy Co., the joint venture between Peco Energy Co. and British Energy that is buying up used nuclear power plants in the U.S. GPU personnel still operate the plant.

http://www.energyonline.com/Restructuring/news_reports/news/0815nuk.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 16, 2000