Invasion by jellyfish like creatures force shut down of US nuclear plant

San Luis Obispo : CA : USA | Apr 27, 2012 at 7:45 PM PDT

By prabirghose

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Invasion by jellyfish like creatures have clogged the seawater intakes of the Unit No 2 of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in the US and have forced its shutdown as reported in nzherald.co.nz of 28th April 2012.

The Unit No 1 reactor is already closed down for scheduled refueling and, as a result, both of them are now offline.

These twin reactors supply power to over 3-million homes in Central and North California. However, this shutdown would not have any serious effect because there are already adequate reserves and the weather is also cool - hence, consumption would not be much.

It is understood that the clogging is from salps which are similar to jellyfish.

The salps are barrel shaped plankton which can grow up to 10-cm in length and usually link together and float in the water in ropelike formations. Moreover, these have the ability to multiply very fast because they can reproduce both sexually and asexually – this ‘bloom’ can create millions of them in a very short time.

It seems that the southerly winds have blown these salps into the intake region of the reactor.

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prabirghose is based in Nāshik, Maharashtra, India, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.

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