Waterford – The Unit 2 reactor at Millstone Power Station is at half-power today, and has been since Saturday, so a leak in a tube on a feedwater heater can be repaired.

A series of feedwater heaters are used to heat up water that is fed back into a steam generator to create steam, which is then piped to a turbine that is turned to generate electricity, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The water circulates through the tubes as it is being heated.

This water is not on the radioactive side of reactor operation, but there are very low, minute levels of radioactivity in it, Sheehan said. The water would be captured by plant systems, and workers would exercise certain precautions to make sure there’s no harmful radioactivity exposure, he said.

“It should not be a complicated repair because it mainly involves plugging a tube that’s developed a leak,” he added.

Millstone owner Dominion could not be immediately reached for comment.