Braidwood Station's "unusual event" concludes
BRACEVILLE – While Unit 2 at Braidwood Generating Station remained idle, the "unusal event" that triggered its shutdown was officially over Sunday morning.
Operators at Braidwood Station declared the "unusual event" around 9 p.m. Thursday evening, July 30, when power coming into the plant was lost because of a transformer issue. It officially ended at approximately 12:30 a.m. Sunday, after plant personnel completed inspections and work to restore electrical service.
An unusual event is the lowest of four emergency classifications as defined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Unit 1 remained at full power throughout the incident.
As part of the plant shutdown, systems were depressurized and steam was released into the atmosphere, creating a loud noise. Such releases are typical of plant shutdowns when there is a disruption to incoming power and are allowed under the station’s operating license, which is regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The steam release, which went up about 100 feet from the release valves and dispersed into the atmosphere, contained expected levels of tritium ranging from 11,500 to 38,000 picocuries per liter of water. The amount released was less than 0.1 percent of all airborne radionuclides released through normal plant operations over the course of a year.
“We appreciate the patience of our neighbors during the initial outage in which plant noise may have been loud and startling,” Braidwood Station Site Vice President Bryan Hanson said. “It’s also important that people realize that this kind of steam venting is part of the plant design and poses no environmental, health or safety impact to workers or to the public.”
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