Hurricane Sandy: Two US nuclear plants shut down

PSEG said it manually shut down the 1,175 MW unit,but said there were 8220;no issues8221; in the shutdown and the facility was 8220;currently stable.8221;

The Salem 2 unit was already offline for maintenance when the storm hit,and PSEG said another nearby nuclear unit,Hope Creek,remains operating at full power.

In New York,power generator Energy shut down a unit of its Indian Point nuclear facility 8220;due to external electrical grid issues.8221;

Another unit remained at full power,and Energy said on Twitter that there was 8220;no risk8221; to the public or company employees.

Late yesterday,the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was monitoring all plants in the US northeast as Sandy pushed up water levels in rivers and bays,which are crucial for cooling operations at the facilities.

The Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey,which was in a regularly scheduled outage when the storm hit,set off an alert when flood waters exceeded a threshold set for its water intake facilities.