I thought they just throw enough money at the nukes to never make them an a aging plant? I think we are basically talking about a form of a Republican conservative ideology...how republicans do nuclear power. Entergy has a particular republican ideology.

Remember, this company is owned and controlled by some 90% of institutional investors...  

Downtime at 'aging' Grand Gulf attracts increased scrutiny

Edward Klump and Kristi E. Swartz, E&E News reporters

Energywire: Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Tucked near Mississippi's border with Louisiana, deep in Entergy Corp.'s territory, rests the largest single-unit U.S. nuclear power station.

It's called Grand Gulf, and it boasts a 1,443-megawatt capacity.

But it hasn't been acting like a dependable backbone of the power grid.

An E&E News review of federal daily reactor status reports from 2013 through last month found Grand Gulf listed at full power roughly 52.5 percent of the time. It was at zero percent power almost 21 percent of the days studied. On other days, it was at various reduced levels.

Does that sound like a baseload plant?

"No," said Ted Thomas, chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission.

New Orleans-based Entergy has a 90 percent stake in the plant through an entity called System Energy Resources Inc. Cooperative Energy in Mississippi has the other 10 percent.

Utilities in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana get a chunk of electricity from Grand Gulf, so regulators notice when it's offline. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) manages the grid in the region, but outages at Grand Gulf can have implications for customers' bills and utilities' carbon footprint. That's because tapping other generators can be more expensive and increase the use of fossil fuels.

"I'm aware they're having issues with an aging plant, and we probably need to look at that further," Thomas said recently...