Probably unrelated to Y2K... pay no attention...

``We decided to do a bit more work than originally planned,''...."its usual annual maintenance outage lasts only four to five weeks"...."shut on May 9 for its annual maintenance outage, was expected to be off line for about two months"...." NB Power said Friday the restart of its 635-megawatt Point Lepreau nuclear power station in New Brunswick, Canada, was pushed back by about three weeks to the last week in July"

NB Power says Pt Lepreau nuke shut until late July

NEW YORK, July 16 (Reuters) - NB Power said Friday the restart of its 635-megawatt Point Lepreau nuclear power station in New Brunswick, Canada, was pushed back by about three weeks to the last week in July.

``We decided to do a bit more work than originally planned,'' a spokeswoman for NB Power said, adding ``the plant should be ready to restart in the last week of the month.''

Originally, the plant, shut on May 9 for its annual maintenance outage, was expected to be off line for about two months. This was the plant's first outage since July 1998.

NB Power previously said its usual annual maintenance outage lasts only four to five weeks, but in this outage the company decided to do additional work to return the plant to a spring maintenance cycle to help minimize electricity production costs.

NB power said maintenance at thermal plants (nuclear and fossil-fired) occurs from March to October, while maintenance at hydro plants is scheduled for summer months. In this way, thermal plants complete their required maintenance when low-cost hydropower is readily available.

Point Lepreau represents about one third of NB Power's total generation. To make up for the lost generation, the company said it has imported power from Hydro Quebec and run more of its own generation.

NB Power is a provincial government-owned electric utility.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 17, 1999

Answers

Gee, here I was expecting Indian Point or one of the other nukes to be involved. Now I see it is an Oh Canada type operation!

Thanks for the info anyway.

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@It's ALL going away in January.com), July 17, 1999.

[[ NB power said maintenance at thermal plants (nuclear and fossil-fired) occurs from March to October, while maintenance at hydro plants is scheduled for summer months ]]

Excuse me, but isn't summer during those months?

[[ In this way, thermal plants complete their required maintenance when low-cost hydropower is readily available. ]]

Are they talking about the same time here? How does this work? Does Canada have a different time for summer than we do? And isn't it summer now?

Hmmm...

Always wondered about them Canadians!

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), July 17, 1999.

Canadians use the same calendar, and have Summre in the same months we do. I was wondering about that odd March-October ref. myself.

-- Draco42 (Not@all.in.a.forum), July 17, 1999.

K Stevens.. thanks for pointing this out. My oversight. I pulled the NY from the location of the ARTICLE.. and overlooked that the PLANT is in New Brunswick, Canada. So sorry... Editors?? Moderator? Please remove the NY from the subject if you can. Thanks. [shouldn't have been posting past my bedtime]

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 17, 1999.

One old boy I met in Northern Ontario said, "We have two seasons here -- winter and August."

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 17, 1999.

Linda, Don't worry about it! Not a problem. Anyone who can read will realize what is really going on with the story.

And anyone with half a brain, or maybe a little more than half, will realize that it is a typo about the summer thing.

I was only kidding a little about the Canadians. I worked with a bunch of them a couple of years ago. They were the tech support group for the company I worked at. It was at times scary but mostly just funny. Of course the customers didn't appreciate the humor, but I did! Still do, come to think of it! heh heh

I wonder what they are up to now?.....

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), July 17, 1999.