Safe Ice on Pepin and the Power Plant?

I’ve been talking via email with the relations person for Excel Energy and the nuclear power plant in Welch.

At first I was interested in finding out when the second generator was going to be back on line because of the ice around the launch at Everts.

I was told they can’t give out that info publicly because of competitors raising and lowering their prices. Made sense to me.

Then I started thinking about ice safety on Pepin. With more water coming out of the discharge (It can only be a 5 degree max difference from the river water) common sense would say that it’s going to make a difference on the ice at the head of the lake.

So, I’ve asked for the start up dates for the last 7 years to match up with the dates vehicles have been reported going in.

I’m thinking they’re on Christmas vacation…we’ll see what they respond with.

THANKS for your Public Service BK

Well, I’m not exactly sure it is a service yet or not.

Well, then. Thanks for nuttin’.

I’m good with that…

Have a great New Year Ralph and Phamily!!

Great idea. BK’s Public Service Announcements.

“The More You Know…”

I’m sure they are going to duck the issue. But if you can prove a correlation then maybe something can be done to better warn the people downstream. Good thinking!

Did I just compliment BK? Time for a routine cat scan……

No comment so far. I’m thinking they’re checking out first.

FYI

This is the WATER TEMP at L&D #3 for the last 10 days.

Since the air temp has been dropping, I can only assume there is more warm water being discharged from some place.

How much this effects the ice on Pepin, I can’t even guess. As always of the river, the ice that is safe today may not be tomorrow.

Back to my number crunching….

I just saw that that the operating rate for Prairie Island 2 was reported to the NRC to be 29%, guess that means they are in the start-up mode.

Quote:

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Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 in Red Wing, Minn., resumed generating electricity Monday after a 3½-month shutdown to complete a $280 million replacement of two steam generators during a partial refueling, the plant’s owner said.

Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis, said the unit was restored to full power at 2 a.m., after being out of service since Sept. 21, when about 1,500 contractors helped the plant staff replace a third of the fuel along with two steam generators that were 40 years old.

Each of the two units at the plant is refueled about every 18 months, and the utility often completes other major work during such outages.

David Shaffer

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