Officials investigating Illinois reactor shutdown

OK, Comments are appearing but no article. Yahoo, what's going on?

the level of ignorance about nuclear reactors leads me to believe we still collectively believe in "bad" witches, and demons.

I spent 22 years of my working career as a pipefitter building nuclear power plants all over the USA. From Big Rock power plant in Charlevoix MI. To Diablo Canyon in Ca. From Monticello Minnesota to Palo Verde Az. I would trust an American made nuke a quantum leap more that I would a nuke built by anybody else. That said, they can be problematic and potentially dangerous. Three Mile Is. was the closest we have come to a melt down. That was decades ago. Unless an earthquake, terrorist act, or outright negligence touches one off I think we are OK here in the states. Any plant anywhere melting down would be a world wide catastrophe.

Sounds like EXC did everything they were suppose to. When you produce electricity things happen, just like a factory or a construction site.

This saves time, no story

If you think nuclear power is bad, you should hear the truth about dihydrogen monoxide

Anyone who knows even a little about nuclear power plants in the US know this article is loaded with #$%$

OK... so here is what is happening. The plant lost off-site power (not a nuclear issue here... probably a failed electric transformer made by GE). The reactor tripped as it is designed to do and all nuclear fission has stopped due to the control rods being inserted into the core. A byproduct of fission are atoms known as fission products (usually gases) that remain trapped within the fuel rods (by design)... these fission products then slowly radioactively decay away and generate heat while doing so even after fission itself has stopped... this is called decay heat in the nuclear industry. The decay heat must be removed from the fuel rods to keep them at a safe temperature. This is done by circulating coolant across the fuel rods and transferring the heat into the steam plant's steam generators. The coolant transfers the decay heat to the mass of non-radioactive water in the steam generators which causes it to boil and create steam (this is basic boiler theory here folks). The steam is then vented to the atmosphere because the steam turbine is no longer online due to the plant trip... this is all by design and everything is working exactly as it is supposed to... venting the steam pulls heat out of the steam generator which pulls heat from the coolant which allows decay heat to continue to be transferred to the coolant... pretty simply really... the author of this article is so clueless about how a Rankine steam cycle works it is not even funny (and if you are reading this and you don't know how the Rankine cycle works, I suggest you Google it and you might learn something)... no wonder the general population is so clueless about nuclear, they read idiocy like this article

What I really hated was fighting the 500-lb chipmunk running around in Illinois's Quad Cities Nuclear Station...that lil' bastid almost got me last time I was there...rotten rodent! The 100 foot black snake at Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom Nuclear Station is a bother, too! Watch out, 'cause he'll swallow your butt WHOLE!!!!

The way the government and corporations currently behave, why would anyone believe what they say? Good luck to the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago.

Radioactive steam in the reactor. Byron is a PWR Nuclear plant. There better not be any steam in the reactor.

President Obama should visit the site to calm the people as President Carter did during Three Mile Island episode. this is my second message but i guess yahoo is now censuring comments, only 4 comments

The steam contains low levels of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, but federal and plant officials insisted the levels were safe for workers and the public.

Folks this is only the tip of the iceberg. I have many relatives who work and some retired from the nuclear industry and the stories that thay have told me make me fear for anybody living withing 50 miles of a nuclear facility. I moved away from an area when a nuclear power plant was built about 10 miles from my home based on what my relatives had told me about the real dangers of living in such an area. We need to stop using nuclear energy and move on to solar power plants for the energy that we need. Most of Spain is now powered by solar power plants as sell as a significant part of California and the technology is now even better than when these plants were built some 20 years ago. It is amazing that we have not had more Three Mile Island accidents that was almost a complete melt down or meltdowns like those in Japan where parts of Japan will forever be devoid of human habitation because of it. The reason that we still use nuclear power is political and not technical with all of the nuclear lobyists all over Washington preventing the change to solar plants.

Oh Yeah, our real SAFE nuclear plants. NOT!

... earthquake in Wisconsin around the same time and area ...

We are DOOMED

If it is run by union thugs, it is no surprise to. They probably get paid to sleep on the job, just like there teachers union buddies. They are a joke.

Don't ask Japan for help!

I blame Bush!