Unit 3 of Chernobyl nuclear power plant stopped for repairs

Source: ITAR-TASS News Wire Publication date: Feb 24, 2000

KIEV, February 24 (Itar-Tass) - Unit three of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was stopped late on Wednesday for repairs over the malfunctioning pipeline system and cut off of electricity, Itar- Tass learned on Thursday at the press service of the Energoatom company.

It is believed that repairs will be finished on March 4. That was already the third halt this year of the only operating unit at the power plant. Specialists believe that as a result of frequent stoppages and repair works, unit three has become unprofitable.

Early in February, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said officially that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be stopped this year. Units one and two are already being prepared to be put out of operation.

Unit four was destroyed in the power plant disaster of 1986 and buried in a "sarcophagus".

Publication date: Feb 24, 2000 ) 2000, NewsReal, Inc.

http://beta.newsreal.com/cgi-bin/NewsService?osform_template=pages/newsrealStory&ID=newsreal&storypath=News/Story_2000_02_28.NRdb@2@7@3@322&path=News/Category.NRdb@2@7

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 28, 2000

Answers

Isn't this one of the plants the Russians wanted to take off line permanently? Why the push to keep "repairing" it?

-- mike in houston (mmorris67@hotmail.com), February 28, 2000.

Power. Heat. Freezing temperatures.

But at least now it's shutdown - again. If three times (for emergency repairs) in just that few months - it will even more dangerous once lit off again.

Shutdowns mean "no money" mean "more pressure from the political types to operate (perhaps unsafely, perhaps foolishly unsafely) the next time.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 28, 2000.