Fuel Rod Pieces Missing at Vt. Nuke Plant

[No2W2004]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=3&u=/ap/20040422/ap_on_re_us/nuclear_fuel_missing

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Two pieces of a highly radioactive fuel rod are missing from a Vermont nuclear plant, and engineers planned to search onsite for the nuclear material, officials said Wednesday.



The fuel rod was removed in 1979 from the Vermont Yankee reactor, which is currently shut down for refueling and maintenance. Remote-control cameras will be used to search a spent fuel pool on the property, officials said.


"We do not think there is a threat to the public at this point. The great probability is this material is still somewhere in the pool," said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan.


But Sheehan said it was possible the spent fuel was mixed in with a shipment of low-level nuclear waste and ended up at a repository in South Carolina, or a facility in Washington state. He said it was also possible it was taken to a nuclear testing facility run by General Electric, which designed the plant.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Great...

Fucking Vt Yankee...Last week they were spinning wildly over the cracks they found during their "upgrade". Incompetence and greed...Btw, I live 15 min. from there.... :mad:

[jburton]

2. Howard Dean's got Da' Bomb!

:nuke:

:crazy:

[glaeken777]

3. Move along, nothing to see here..

Maybe I'm missing something, but this is oddly ineffectual news, outside of the obvious security snafu involved.

The article stated that the unshielded rod would kill anyone who came into contact with it.

So, unless we have hundreds of terrorists lined up and passing the thing around like a baton race, who cares?