CNN Breaking News

Massive power outage hits Central and South Florida.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: The outage was apparently caused by a nuclear power plant shutting down -- or possibly vice versa. Quoth the AP:

Florida's largest electric company shut down a nuclear reactor south of Miami for safety reasons Tuesday, causing sporadic power outages covering large portions of the state that could last well into the night. More than 3 million people are affected, the state says.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that the two Florida Power & Light nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point power point 30 miles south of Miami automatically shut down. ...

"We don't know whether the grid disturbance caused the units to shut down or that their shut down caused the grid disturbance," said Kenneth Clark, a spokesman at the NRC regional office in Atlanta. He said the two reactors were automatically shut down and in safe standby.

"There are no safety concerns. The reactors shut down as designed," said Clark in a telephone interview.

Federal officials say there's no indication terrorism is involved.

The Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Palm Beach Post and St. Petersburg Times have more.

UPDATE 2: Lending credence to the "vice versa" theory (i.e., that "the grid disturbance caused the [nuclear] units to shut down" rather than "their shut down caused the grid disturbance"), the Palm Beach Post says "a 'massive equipment failure' just after 1 p.m. at an FPL substation in Miami-Dade County caused the massive power outages that affected parts of the state today, an FPL spokesman said." FPL stands for Florida Power & Light.

"There has been a major equipment failure at the FPL transmission substation in South Florida that has caused major transmission imbalances throughout the state," Public Service Commission spokeswoman Bev Demello said today.

Something caused the protective tripping mechanisms of some generating units to activate, which has caused rotating blackouts, she said.

I don't think "FPL transmission substation" and "nuclear power plant" are synonymous, so it appears we have conflicting explanations here. Lending further credence to this interpretation: the Post's website has a separate headline stating, "Nuclear plant affected." Cause and effect are different, so I assume they're saying the plant didn't cause it, but was merely affected by it.

Personally, I blame some combination of butterfly ballots, Raul Castro, and Hillary Clinton, not necessarily in that order.

P.S. Oh, and Canada. Always Blame Canada.

Comments

[Brendan Loy]

Hillary Clinton issued a statement explaining that she will turn the lights back on as soon as the DNC agrees to seat Florida's delegates.

You're next, Michigan...

[Andrew]

They're just lucky this didn't happen in August....

[DP]

I'm guessing it was a fault in the distribution system. This caused a drop in reactor power levels which would have caused a xenon spike which would have eventually shut the reactors down, thus the reactors were scrammed before then. They will probably be brought online again after enough of the xenon has decayed to allow a startup.

Xe-135 is a fission product in nuclear reactors that acts as a neutron poison (absorbs neutrons). It is produced directly from fission or from decay of I-135 fission products and it is removed by neutron absorption or normal Xe-135 beta decay. With a sudden power drop the neutron absorption and burnout of Xe-135 is dramatically reduced which allows I-135 still present in the core to decay to Xe-135. Thus the Xe-135 concentration skyrockets beyond the capability of the operators to compensate. Thus they will have to wait a few hours for enough of it to decay to perform a startup.

The coal plants that were dropped will probably be online much earlier as they only need to correct the distribution faults. Of course, I'm hypothesizing the likely fault. I'll have to wait until tomorrow or Thursday to see the NRC event report.

[Jim Bordelon]

I blame the BCS!

FWIW, the generating stations produce electricity and transmit power at high voltages. The transmission substation(s) the reduce the voltage level for distribution to smaller areas. Two separate but related functions. And a fault in one can definitely affect the other.

[DP]

It was as I expected:

At approximately 1:09 p.m. today, Turkey Point's two nuclear reactors (units 3 and 4) automatically shut down from 100% power in response to an "undervoltage" caused when two power distribution lines between Miami and Daytona went down following an equipment malfunction in a substation near Miami. The automatic trip of the reactors is a safety measure to protect plant equipment from abnormal power line voltages. The reactors are likely to be shut down for 12 to 24 hours, as part of a regular re-start protocol, with offsite power sources remaining available. Emergency diesel generators were not necessary.

There are Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors on site, and the NRC is closely monitoring the situation from its regional office in Atlanta and from headquarters in Rockville, Md.

[Brendan Loy]

Fascinating, DP! Thanks!

[Julia]

I'm on a hospital grid, so I didn't lose power, though just about a mile south of me, all the traffic lights were down and being directed by cops.

But, I have no idea if this could possibly be related, but I was getting gas this evening (in an area that appeared to have power) and saw that everyone was staring at something. A pole across the street was on fire.