[ RadSafe ] Questions Re: McGuire Nuclear Station

[Ted de Castro]

Anyone reading the list associated with McGuire Nuclear Station in NC?

My son lives near there and I just got a concerned call from his wife - 
seems the local population has been told that when the lake gets below 7 
ft below crest that the reactor "has a problem" and since it was ALMOST 
there she wanted to know "how big a bang to expect".

I explained that the lake water was used as a secondary coolant and that 
the issue was PROBABLY that at below 7 ft it would be getting close to 
not being able to draw enough water fast enough for sufficient cooling 
to operate at full power and the reactor would need to shut down and 
that this could be done quickly and safely and that the greatest effect 
they could possibly anticipate would power outages or rolling blackouts 
as the missing power would need to come from somewhere.  Also that when 
the lake was again high enough the reactor could be relatively simply 
restarted.

I also assured them that the 7ft spec was probably quite conservative.

They felt better and now thanks to Joaquin - the lake is filling FAST!

None the less - I told them I would put the question to the list and see 
what feedback I could get on what the issues were/are.

BTW - they also asked what is the heat source for the steam plant at the 
other end of the lake and its function.

BTW II - I did look at the DUKE website for that plant and forwarded 
that to them.