The Boston Globe reports (here) that Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Pilgrim, mass., has had its safety rating downgraded after several unplanned shutdowns.
The plant is now one of just three nuclear power reactors nationwide ranked in the next to lowest performance category, officials said. There are no plants in the lowest category.
I’m not sure how the New England grid would react if Pilgrim, a 688-mw power station, had to shut. We’re running a little thin on baseload power stations these days.
A bit of trivia I just learned: Pilgrim was the first nuclear plant in the country to be sold by competitive bidding, back in 1999. It’s now owned by Entergy.