Fort Calhoun's reactor has been closed since April for refueling. The plant had already been operating under a heightened level of alert because of nearby flooding on the Missouri River, the NRC said. They still don't know what caused the fire:
A fire in an electrical switch room on Tuesday briefly knocked out cooling for a pool holding spent nuclear fuel at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Neb., plant officials said.
The safety of deep pools used to store used radioactive fuel at nuclear plants has been an issue since the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in March. If the cooling water [for] a pool is lost, the used nuclear fuel could catch fire and release radiation.
As ProPublica reported earlier, fire safety is a continuing concern at the country's 104 commercial reactors, as is the volume of spent fuel piling up at plants.
Officials at Fort Calhoun said the situation at their plant came nowhere near to Fukushima's. They said it would have taken 88 hours for the heat produced by the fuel to boil away the cooling water.
Workers restored cooling in about 90 minutes, and plant officials said the temperature in the pool only increased by two degrees.
Okay, so it sounds like this was not a big deal. But we also know the NRC is a classic example of regulatory capture, and we'd have to count on them to tell us the truth about any nuclear crisis. Considering what we've seen of dangerous industries, ask yourself this question: Do you feel trusting?
