Reasons to Doubt the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League

This morning's edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a short piece reporting that the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League is moving to block the construction of a third reactor at North Anna in Virginia in the wake of the August earthquake on the East coast.

Here's what the folks at Dominion Virginia Power have to say about the action:

Dominion Virginia Power, owner of two nuclear reactors at the North Anna plant, said the earthquake has no bearing on the licensing of a third unit, which would be built to a seismic standard more than four times that of the existing units.

"We have worked through the seismic requirements for Unit 3," utility spokesman Rick Zuercher said Thursday night. "They're stringent and would have well withstood what happened at North Anna with the existing units."

While the ground vibration from the quake exceeded design limits for the two existing reactors, the utility said the plant suffered no significant damage.

I can't help but shake my head every time I read something from the folks at BREDL. From my experience, they're just not credible, something we've pointed out here at NEI Nuclear Notes in a number of instances:

Something tells me that the folks at the Atomic Safety Licensing Board Panel will take these points into account when they consider BREDL's latest complaint.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Whoa. "While the ground vibration from the quake exceeded design limits for the two existing reactors, the utility said the plant suffered no significant damage." Why the qualifier "significant"? Wouldn't the utility have said, "no damage" if that were the case? Would it not be prudent to fix the existing units to withstand a recent quake before building a third?

November 16, 2012 at 11:51 AM

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Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

NEI Nuclear Notes

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