Nuclear fail-safe

[unixronin]

Xcel Energy Inc.'s nuclear plant at Monticello [Minnesota] has been shut down indefinitely while experts investigate why a large component broke loose and triggered the plant's automatic safety systems.

Hey, it failed safe, exactly as it's supposed to.  But have you heard anything about this on the news?  The only reason I knew about it was because yndy er, suzilem posted this Hungarian information-service site showing alert events in the US.  You can find it on Google News, if you search on Monticello, but it doesn't make the headline page.  CNN doesn't appear to have it at all.

Apparently a synergistic side-effect of the shutdown was a fish kill in the Mississippi river:

A side-effect of the shutdown was that it killed over 3,000 fish in the Mississippi River near the plant.

Nonradioactive water used to cool the plant is normally discharged into the river, Datu said, creating warm spots.  When the discharge stopped, she said, the river water quickly cooled, and the fish died of thermal shock.  A planned shutdown typically kills around 100 fish, she said.

Does this mean the fish have evolved dependence on the nuclear power plant...?

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I wanna hear a Greenie outcry demanding more nuclear power to keep the fishies warm and cozy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It'd be amusing. Though much of the Green movement has come around to the realization that, overall, nuclear fission may actually be the least polluting/environmentally damaging means of large-scale power generation currently available to us (coal-fired steam being the most polluting, followed by oil-fired; hydro is nice and clean, of course, but has other undesirable environmental impacts and there's a limited choice of places where you can put a hydro plant).