News - Local

Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2008

A weekend fire at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant stops reactor indefinitely

The transformer damaged in the blaze Sunday will have to be replaced, according to plant officials; the cause of the fire has not yet been determined

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No date has been set for restarting a reactor at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant that was the site of a transformer fire early Sunday.

The burned transformer will have to be replaced. The fire also slightly damaged another transformer and other nearby equipment as well as the plant’s administration building.

Plant workers are still trying to determine the extent of the repairs and the cause of the accident, said Sharon Gavin, spokeswoman for plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The plant has a replacement transformer on site.

The fire broke out shortly after midnight Sunday when the transformer failed. The transformer is located outside the plant’s turbine building and increases the voltage of the electricity produced by the plant to levels suitable for transmission across the electrical grid.

The plant’s fire department extinguished the blaze. No one was injured, and no radiation was released into the environment.

The fire caused one of the plant’s two nuclear reactors to automatically shut down. The other reactor remains in operation.

The fire also caused plant operators to issue an unusual event notification to federal nuclear regulators and local government officials. It was terminated at 2:31 a. m. Sunday.

The loss of the reactor will not create a power shortage in the state, said Gregg Fishman,

spokesman for the state Independent System Operator, which manages the grid. Extensive use of air conditioners in hot weather can cause power shortages, but temperatures are currently mild, so that’s not a problem.

“Loads are low, and we have plenty of other power sources, so there are no issues,” Fishman said.

Transformer fires are a growing problem as the country’s fleet of nuclear power plants ages, said David Lochbaum, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group. There have been 60 transformer fires at nuclear plants since 1978, according to the group.

“All of the transformers are reaching the wear-out stage,” he said.

Plant operators do not consider the fire to be an aging component issue, Gavin said. The transformer that failed was eight to 10 years old.

A transformer fire May 15, 2000 caused the shutdown of Diablo Canyon’s other reactor.