Quake Motion May Have Exceeded Plant's Design - Wall Street Journal
By TENNILLE TRACY
WASHINGTON—The North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia may have experienced more ground motion during last week's earthquake than it was designed to handle, U.S. nuclear officials said Monday.
The North Anna plant, owned by Dominion Resources Inc., declared an "alert" status Tuesday after the 5.8-magnitude earthquake disrupted the plant's access to normal power supplies and forced it to switch to emergency diesel generators.
In a statement Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Dominion reported that initial reviews indicated the plant may have exceeded the ground motion for which it was designed.
"This determination is in line with NRC's preliminary independent analyses," the NRC said, "although 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."
The NRC said it has dispatched inspectors to the plant to further review the effects of last week's earthquake. Such a move doesn't imply that the plant is less safe or that Dominion responded inappropriately, the NRC said.
The NRC requires each nuclear reactor to be able to shut down safely if it experiences a certain level of ground motion, known as peak ground acceleration. At North Anna, a rocky part of the site is built to withstand 0.12g and a softer part of the site is built to withstand 0.18g, according to the NRC.
Write to Tennille Tracy at tennille.tracy@dowjones.com
30 Aug, 2011--
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