Nation IN BRIEF : NORTH CAROLINA : Crack Is Discovered in Another Reactor

Another crack was found in the steel cylinder of a nuclear reactor at a power plant being watched because of poor performance, federal regulators said. The cracks at Carolina Power & Light Co.’s Brunswick plant in Raleigh, N.C., pose no immediate safety problems, but a cracked core shroud could shift and hamper operation of reactor control rods in the event of an earthquake or any other kind of disaster, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The first crack was detected last summer in an inoperative reactor the company hopes to repair and restart by December. The second was found in an operating reactor.