Vermont Yankee is returning to full power after technicians failed to find the source of a leak of Connecticut River water into the nuclear plant’s cooling system.
The leak had prompted the plant to reduce power by more than half on Monday so repairs could be made.
But crews were unable to determine which of the 22,000 condenser tubes was leaking.
Spokesman Rob Williams says the plant will be able to operate until technicians can search again for the leak during the next planned outage for refueling in the fall of 2008.
Neal Sheehan, spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the plant needs to maintain purity in the steam that travels between the reactor and the turbine, and said the plant has de-mineralizers to do that.