May 25 (Reuters) – Entergy Corp said it manually
shut its 974-megawatt River Bend nuclear power plant in
Louisiana on Thursday due to a loss of high-pressure feed to the
reactor vessel.
“The loss was a result of a fault in reactor feed pump,”
company spokesman Mike Bowling said.
Operators at the unit initiated a manual scram while repairs
were being made to the faulty instrument, Bowling said.
He declined to share estimates on when the unit would return
to service, citing company policy.
The unit was operating at 33 percent capacity prior to the
shutdown, Entergy told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
according to a report on its website Friday.
The unit was shut on Monday due to a condenser
problem.
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PLANT BACKGROUND/TIMELINE
STATE: Louisiana
PARISH: West Feliciana
TOWN: St. Francisville about 24 miles (38 km)
northwest of Baton Rouge, the state capital
OPERATOR: Entergy Nuclear
OWNER(S): Entergy Gulf States Louisiana
CAPACITY: 974 MW
UNIT(S): General Electric boiling water reactor
FUEL: Nuclear
DISPATCH: Baseload
COST: $4.2 billion
TIMELINE:
1973 – Unit 2 proposed
1984 – Unit 2 canceled
1986 – Unit 1 enters commercial service
2008 – Entergy files a combined construction and
operating license (COL) application with the NRC
to build a new 1,550-MW General Electric-Hitachi
Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR)
at an estimated cost of $6.2 billion
2009 – Entergy asks NRC to suspend review of the COL
after the company and GE-Hitachi could not come to
terms on the new reactor
Jan 2015 – Entergy to file with NRC to renew the original
40-year operating license for an additional 20
years
2025 – Unit 1 license expires
