Saturday, September 03, 2011
North Anna Power Station
Last week’s earthquake that rattled the Mid-Atlantic region also left federal safety inspectors a little shaken after they examined a Virginia nuclear power plant that was shut down by the seismic event.
Regulators with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said their preliminary assessment of the plant revealed that the 5.8 earthquake may have exceeded the safety limit of the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County.
The North Anna’s two reactors, which were temporarily powered down following the quake, were designed to withstand the equivalent of a 5.9 to 6.1 magnitude earthquake.
A spokesman for Dominion, the company that operates the plant, said, “We have informed the NRC that preliminary reports from instruments show the earthquake potentially exceeded the design basis.”
But the NRC said in its own official statement that “data is still being collected and analyzed to determine the precise level of shaking that was experienced at key locations within the North Anna facility.”
Safety advocates are hoping the news will pressure the NRC to implement new rules intended in to protect nuclear plants from major natural disasters like earthquakes.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Feds: Earthquake May Have Exceeded Virginia Nuclear Plant's Safeguards (by Andrew Restuccia, The Hill)
Nuclear Officials Worry about Safety Plans Despite Public Assurances (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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