This is not a Carte-Reagan election. Unlike Carter, Obama did nothing prior, during, and likely after his term, and Mitt Romney is a terrible actor.

I believe it was stated that #2 is so polluted that it is on permanent shutdown.

That is actually sort of alarming to me since they probably install 4 identical pumps at the same time each with a rated lifetime that is about the same. So when the first fails, the others are surely soon to follow, And that takes us full circle to why if one fails, the system is designed to shut down.

The fact that it is a nuclear reactor means that it SHOULD have backups, and backups for those backups, and if that should fail, there is a backup for that. Perhaps NASA should run our nuclear power plants.

If the backup fails then the system shuts down. as intended.

I would say routing testing and replacement would make this a non issue, but egghead corner cutters tend to think this is the place to cut corners, so I am inclined to agree.

That to me implies that the normal situation is that all 4 pumps must be running, and they are not there for redundancy at all. If not, why have the other 3 pumps there at all?

Can they not have parallel backup pumps designed to leap into action when needed? Seems like some extra plumbing and monitoring hardware could help avert a costly shutdown.

Remove the plates, use an inexpensive grinding wheel to remove the thin chemical layer from each plate. Shotgun=recoverable sectors.

Actually, it just offers more proof that /. will run with a rumor if it sounds like it will serve their needs politically. This garbage should never have seen the light of day until they took the time to get ANY kind of confirmation. (considering the source) But I expect no less of people who have an agenda. I have yet to see an article biased in the other direction. Will I? no.