Indian Point Nuclear Plant undergoes $50 million refueling outage

Plant personnel and supplemental employees conducted a Unit 3 refueling outage early Monday at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in Buchanan, New York, station officials said.
“We have brought in about 1,000 highly skilled contract workers, in addition to our 1,000 regular employees, to help perform hundreds of scheduled maintenance activities and inspections during the Unit 3 outage,” Entergy's Indian Point site vice president Larry Coyle said. “In addition to conducting important work on Unit 3, they are providing an economic boost to our region.”
Indian Point is investing more than $50 million, including about $30 million in employee salaries, to complete the refueling and other important projects at Unit 3. The investment both directly and indirectly pushes money into the state's economy through the extra business the supplemental workers provide to the area’s local hotels, shops and restaurants.
Supporters say nuclear power plants are among the most dependable of any type of electricity generator, operating on average more than 90 percent of the time. At full power, the Entergy Generation station produces nearly 10,000 megawatts of carbon-free electricity, roughly enough to power 2.8 million American homes and businesses.