NRC file photo of Entergy's Pilgrim atomic reactor, located south of Boston on Cape Cod Bay. Plymouth, MA bore the brunt of winter storm "Juno," but Pilgrim was one of the only electric grid casualites.As reported by Wicked Local Plymouth, despite bearing the brunt of severe winter storm "Juno," about the only part of the electric grid that did not handle it well was Entergy Nuclear's Plymouth atomic reactor. Despite nuclear power industry claims of being reliable during the Polar Vortex of 2014, Pilgrim has been at 0% power now for several days, after its ties to the electric grid became dysfunctional due to ice and high winds. Tellingly, despite Pilgrim's disconnection from the electric grid, the lights remain almost entirely on in the greater Boston area.
Thus, Pilgrim's safety and cooling systems, circulating water through the hot core, are currently being run by emergency diesel generators currently, until connections to the primary, offsite electric grid can be restored. If this continues for many more days, a resupply of diesel fuel will be required, to keep the emergency generators operational.
Pilgrim's severe winter weather shut down comes immediately on top of a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decision to increase inspections and oversight at the Fukushima Daiichi twin design and vintage atomic reactor (a General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor, that fired up in 1972), due to numerous unexpected shutdowns in the past many months and years.