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Diablo Canyon Power Plant / AP
This photo provided by the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on Friday shows salp, a gelatinous sea creature, at a nuclear reactor intake structure.
In Japan, it was a monstrous earthquake and tsunami that brought down the Fukushima nuclear plant. In California, it’s a tiny, jellyfish-like sea creature called salp that’s causing problems at the Diablo Canyon atomic plant.
An invasion of salp has prompted Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to temporarily shut down a nuclear reactor at Diablo Canyon, in Avila Beach, San Luisa Obispo County, on the central California coast.
A giant swarm of the transluscent barrel-shaped organisms this week clogged intake screens that are used to keep marine life out of the seawater that is used as a coolant for the nuclear plant.
On Wednesday, PG&E officials reduced power output at the Unit 2 reactor, then decided to shut it down altogether “until conditions improve at the intake structure.” The plant’s other reactor, Unit 1, had already been shut down earlier in the week for a planned refueling and maintenance outage.
“Safety being the number one priority, there was such an influx of salp and you need ocean water to cool the reactors,” PG&E spokesman Tom Cuddy told msnbc.com on Friday. “At that point we made a conservative decision to safely shut down the unit.”
PG&E owns and operates the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, whose two reactors together produce approximately 2,300 net megawatts of electricity – enough to serve nearly 3 million northern and central California homes.
Cuddy said he wasn’t sure when the Unit 1 reactor would come back online.
“We’ll turn the unit on to full power when it’s safe to do so – when the salps leave,” he said. “The bottom line is we’re taking a methodical and conservative approach.”
Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees reactor safety and security, said the plant is not in any danger.
“It’s not a normal operation condition, but the plant is safe and all the systems operated as designed,” she said.
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Salps are tiny, gelatinous organisms that move by contracting, thus pumping water throughout their bodies. They can reproduce and multiply quickly.
Though salps look a bit like jellyfish, they are actually more closely related to organisms that have backbones. They typically grow to 1 or 2 inches long and usually do not appear at the coast, says Larry Madin, a salp expert and research director at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
“They’re typically more of an offshore living organism," Madin says. He surmises that the swarm at Diablo may have been carried in on currents blown by wind.
But Steve Haddock, a scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., said salps have been blooming in high numbers along the California coast since at least December. Several sightings have been reported to JellyWatch, a website Haddock runs to track sightings of jellyfish and other marine organisms.
Other than clogging the cooling system filters of a nuclear plant, the organisms pose no danger, says Bruce Robison, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. They don’t sting, they don’t have teeth and they’re not poisonous.
Salps passively feed off tiny organic particles in the water and can reproduce sexually or asexually. “They can have their population size expand tremendously within a short period of time, which makes them very abundant. In a small space, they can take up all the space,” Robison says.
Madin said the slimy swarm at Diablo would probably go away in a few days, carried off by currents. Or, says Robison, they’ll quickly die off when their food supply runs out.
So the best bet, experts say, is for nuclear officials to just wait it out in the short term. "Long term, perhaps if their intakes were a bit deeper, it would not be a problem," Haddock said.
Despite the reactor outage, California is not expected to experience any electricity shortages because it has ample reserves, said Stephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman California ISO, which operates the state's power grid and wholesale markets.
It’s not the first time that sea creatures have interfered with nuclear plant activity.
In 2008, a swarm of jellyfish led to a sharp decrease in power generation at Diablo Canyon, according to the Los Angeles Times. Similar jellyfish problems have cropped up at nuclear plants in the U.S., Japan, Israel and Scotland over the years, the newspaper said.
“It happens. It’s something you would expect along the coast,” Uselding said.
Madin said this is the first time he’s heard of salps interfering with the operation of a nuclear plant.
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Leave a Comment:
You might say the nuclear power industry just got salped.
Could jellyfish or jellyfish-like creatures cause meltdown at a nuclear plant?
It works in the movies
No, But failure to cool the primary water in the condensor would affect the efficiency of generation. And ultimately, the reactor would have to be shutdown before the primary cooling water had to be vented, creating a potential radiation leakage. Actually the Diablo folks don't want to be forced into a emergency shutdown due to venting, or the expensive, time-consuming work of cleaning these crappy little critters out of their cooling grids.
I think Blinky, swam over from the Springfield Nuclear Plant and did it. He was sent by Mr Burns to sabotage the competition.
They're going to become GINORMOUS and take over CA....Arrrrrrggggghhhh...RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!
Revenge of the jellyfish!
Salp happens?
The "jellyfish-like" creatures were actual jellyfish until they started hanging out around a nuclear reactor.
I could swear that this was the plot of a "B Movie" I saw years ago.
The people at Diablo Canyon did the smart thing and took the reactor off line. If they had tried to continue to operate, they would have risked having an overheating situation which could have turned serious. Since at this time of year there is plenty of excess capacity on the grid, the took the responsible, conservative approach of shutting down and waiting it out until these salp move on. Had this happened in the middle of a summer heat wave, taking the plant off line could have been a little more problematic, particularly with San Onofre currently off line as well. During a summer heat wave electricity demand is much greater and they do not have the excess capacity to be able to easily drop a plant off line like this. In that situation, an event like this could have resulted in the need for brown outs or rolling blackouts. They should look into ways to keep a similar event from forcing them off line at a less opportune time.
God's way of giving us a way out of our nuclear nightmare. When mixed with spent fuel rods, they absorb radiation and render it useless.
The side effect, however, are giant Salps who are aligned with Gamara to control Godzilla.
And what if the Salps decide not to leave? What if it is intelligent, organized life? A living, intelligent consciousness that knows now what we did at Fukushima, and are putting themself in a position not to allow that to happen again.
I believe the Salps may be here to stay. So the question to PG&E is: what happens if the Salps decide not to leave? What then?
Ha ha! Mother Nature slowly but surely kicking our a$$es. I am actually surprised they found the problem so quickly. BTW they are called sea jellies not "jellyfish." They are not "fish."
Salps don't sting. However, when you see salps, there are amost always Irukandjis jellyfish around. Be careful.
Now they become mutant jellyfish and take out civilization. They become carnivorous.
I am Yoda's female version...
Without a PHD
It has begun, the salp wars has...
This is California. The rest of the country should not provide water or electricity to these drug loving urchins!
I am moved by your patriotism.
California should not be sending their money to people like you.
and CA gives MORE to the federal government than it receives, only to be wasted on red states that are the real drain on the federal budget
Texas gives more then we recieve back and more per capita then we get back vs.California. When oh when will the San Andrea's Fault give way and we no longer have to claim California as being part of the country???
im not only from Ca. but i live 22 miles from the power plant in san luis obispo county (there is no 'a' at the end of luis btw,) and i don't do drugs, i work 2 jobs as a care provider for the elderly and disabled i have put 3 great kids though school and we are all productive members of society and there are many more like me in Ca. your generalizations show your ignorance please keep it to yourself. thank -you
actually, no, you don't.
however Texas is (barely) a net giver rather than a reciever. about $1.03 given per $1.00 recieved
CA gives about $1.23 per dollar
Wow, a new level of ignorance. Half of America's wintertime food supply comes from California, but you go ahead and keep hoping it slides into the ocean.
Salps are not even remotely related to jellyfish. The are actually chordates, like humans.
By the way, the Diablo Canyon plant is where they filmed "The China Syndrome".
It's a news article, its not unexpected that the writers know nothing about science.
Isn't there anyone here who has at least a little bit of scientific knowledge ? Were these creatures attracted by the nuclear plant or did they end up there by accident ?
This is how horror movies start...
next thing you know, they will grow legs and the rest is history...bahahahaha!!!
The picture for this article is certainly not Salp but rather Kelp, otherwise known as seaweed. You have to love great journalism!
they're on top of the kelp... ooooh, didn't realize you were trolling. please continue.
Captain Obvious, I am so glad you pointed this out. I was wondering where these things in the picture would have their spine. If they have a spine, as the article says, they must have intelligence of some kind.
Ummm, the picture does show the salp. They are the little "clear objects" seen on top of the sea weed. Jellyfish are mostly clear, that's why these critters are referred to as being "jellyfish-like".
Sheesh...
I wonder if we can smoke 'em and get a buz? LMFAO
I think they're a little to wet for that :)
If one can I am sure they will find a way. It is California after all.
Yep, leave it to a stoner to find a way.LOL
legalize weed and we'll be on mars in a decade.
Too hard to light
Captain Obviousness,
I think if you looked a little closer there are these little clear shiny things and I'm not sure but that might be what they are talking about. Kinda silvery / clearish with the leaves in the background. Kinda sparkly.
Is it just me, or do the Salp look like condoms floating in the water?
If that were true it would save California millions in insurance costs.
TXMX...it's just you...:)
Wouldn't that be everywhere then?
Urk. Transparent backbones floating around. Who knew?
Do not worry this is in California and they have plenty of money and can buy power from other States. Californians can use their money and Political influence to overcome all problems. If they need a bailout they can call Barrack on his blackberry
This isn't the first time this has happened. It happens every few years the last time it was jelly fish in 2008 or so.
s=San l=Luis o=Obispo Don so I get slodon
Go Nemo and all your friends in saving Mother Nature.
For all the syfi comment's , google fasciation in the US, I dare you. We got a bigger dose then we were told from that thar fooy sashimi thingy.
close californication or give it back to mexico, they already have the majority of population.
Close your mouth or come up with something other than brainless hate to spew.
hey justredd, if they did that the red states wouldn't have any money
CA gives more to the fed than it gets in return, all those billions wasted on useless red states.
danwill - If the blue states want to keep their money they can do so, the red states will just keep all the food, oil, and nuclear weapons. You can eat, burn, and defend your nation with green paper, right? The only thing that's useless are hippies.
ROFLMAO!
CA is number two behind Texas in oil reserves, the Imperial valley and San Joaquin valley have enough farmland to feed the entire country, and enough bases with nukes (San Diego Naval base, San Francisco, and Vandenberg AFB) on them that your every argument is nothing but laughable nonsense
have fun trying to grow summer crops in the winter (like in Imperial Valley)
without Edwards AFB and the Skunkworks, where will you get the next bomber or fighter?
Wonderful news....sounds like the plant designers thought of everything, eh? Just like the ones in San Onofre that still can't figure out why the pipes are degrading at such a high rate. What else didn't they bother to research when they figured the lifespan of a nuclear plant is only safe till about 40 years. So, the Electric companies sat on their profits with the Federal and State subsidies to insure the plants, but during that whole time never completed their research? What were they doing for 40 years? Taking lessons from the Oil Companies whose future palns to resolve deep ocean spills are exactly the same as they were 35 years ago? Is it a race to see who can be more incompetent? And the rates keep increasing? By the way, the city is San Luis Obispo, not San Luisa Obispo....geez, a three-way race......
Actually, the town is Avila Beach. The county is San Luis Obispo. I worked at Diablo Canyon in 1984 before it went online. SLO town is a great place.
I agree whole heartedly with you... the pipeline they are trying to jam down our throats will not only bother the aquifers, a spill will leave the land a mess... but big oil will tell us it's just our imagination... like everything else they want to deregulate...
Back to your cave, Jack, and stop burning coal and oil to power your PC!
Remember regulation kills american jobs, deregulation, just kills americans. Problem solved deregulate everything and as people die there will be more job openings, unemployment problem solved. See its easy, I think we've just been over thinking things.
Deregulating everything expecting it to create job growth is like someone telling you that masturbation grows hair on the palm of your hand..... It don't happen
Not Crazy Jim, again!
I've never even heard of these "salp" critters before. I feel a bit smarter today.
It's yet another reminder that we are not alone here--sometimes even the greatest structures and businesses have to coexist with the whims of nature.
lets regulate things so much that all of the polluters move to Mexico, India, Brazil and China... where the don't really care about pollution... and the net increase of pollution is increased many fold... instead, why don't we continue to regulate in a RESPONSIBLE manner... as technology increases... so we don't run all the producers of the world away... Our children will be in much better shape if their parents actually have jobs to go to...
Just in case someone on the Vine tells you you don't know Jack Schitt about the issues, arm yourself so you can reply non violently
http://www.toilette-humor.com/toilet_humor/schitt_family.shtml
What do you expect from Virginia?
The "Virginia is for lovers" state should do something about their state flag. A bull dyke standing over a man she killed
Oops, wrong article, my bad
A better picture of salp could have been used. One can barely see the salp for all the kelp seaweed in the way. Oh well... next time you hear someone shout "Look at all those salp!" as they point to a bed of kelp y.ou'll know why.