Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Unlikely To Restart Before Fall

I first heard about this plant in our spring flooding last year from my brother who is a pilot for AEP and he knew about it because of the connection it has with the Missouri River. This plant is located near Blair, Nebraska.

Federal regulators must have been asleep at the wheel when they granted approval to build this plant where it now sits. I say this because the Missouri River has been known to flood just like it did last year. And although the flood played a major part in the closing of said plant, it was also in the middle of refueling when last years spring flood hit the plant.

Regulators continue to watch the Fort Calhoun plant because it has been closed for so long and because several problems were identified at the plant over the course of a few years.

This plant is only twenty miles north of Omaha. And, both the NRC has remained on site since before last year's flooding. The plant is ran by OPPD (Omaha Public Power District) and their Chief Nuclear Officer Dave Bannister said the utility knows there is more work to do to get Fort Calhoun ready to restart.

There is more to this story and if you desire to read more you surely can.

But the bottom line is that they experienced a fire last spring that briefly knocked out power to the cooling system for used fuel. That fire started in an electrical breaker that had been replaced about 18 months earlier.