As a safety precaution, operators powered down the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey Monday night to investigate a potential problem with its electromagnetic relief valves.
According to a report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an unnamed issue discovered affecting EMRVs removed from the plant called into question the operability of the five EMRVs in service. Operators conservatively declared them to be inoperable and manually shut the reactor down, as required by the plant's technical specifications.
In a release, Exelon noted that the valves inside the drywell cannot be serviced while the reactor is in operation. Workers will visually inspect them and replace components as needed during the outage. The single-unit plant is a General Electric type 2 boiling water reactor with Mark I containment. First licensed in 1969, it generates 636 megawatts east of Philadelphia.