Glitch shuts down Callaway power plant

Story ran on Saturday, March 10 2001 AmerenUE’s Callaway Nuclear Plant automatically shut down yesterday after a malfunction was detected shortly before 1 p.m., a power plant official said.

One of the two mechanisms that power the reactor’s control rods failed, triggering the shutdown, AmerenUE spokesman Mike Cleary said in a prepared statement. Control rods move in and out of a plant’s reactor core to start up or shut down the nuclear reaction.

The plant wasn’t operating last night, and Cleary said he’s unsure when it will start up again. "We don’t know why it failed," he said of the mechanism. "We want to make sure we fix it and know why it" broke.

He said that the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be notified and that an investigation will take place. All of that is common procedure in such a situation.

It was the first time the plant had been out of service in 389 days.

Cleary noted that the plant was not in an emergency situation. It was running at 100 percent capacity when it shut down.

No customers lost power because AmerenUE is diverting electricity generated from other plants, Cleary said.

http://archive.showmenews.com/2001/Mar/20010310News021.asp

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 11, 2001