Vermont Yankee Cooling Tower Collapses. A portion of a cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee reactor collapsed Wednesday, A broken 52” pipe was photographed spewing water into the ground, to the embarrassment of Yankee owner Entergy Corporation, the nation’s second-largest nuclear utility. More pictures here.

The United States Government Accountability Office reports () on the botched federal oversight of the near-miss accident at Davis-Besse nuclear power station outside Toledo, Ohio.  FirstEnergy put electricity production ahead of maintaining safety by ignoring multiple warning signs of severe corrosion of the reactor vessel head in what could have resulted in a nuclear accident far worse than Three Mile Island with as little as 2 months operational margin remaining.