NEI Nuclear Notes

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting yesterday to discuss its team’s preliminary inspection results on how the North Anna nuclear plant withstood the August 23 earthquake that rippled throughout the East Coast and the adequacy of the plant’s response. What did they find? David Heacock, Dominion’s president and chief nu clear officer, explains in a short video clip at the meeting: The plant operated as designed with a few minor equipment problems and the people did a fantastic job operating the plant and safely shutting it down. Each nuclear plant in the United States is built to safely withstand an earthquake—North Anna is no exception. But Heacock explains how having an additional safety margin helped the plant when the unexpected quake struck. These plants were designed for a seismic event about the size of this seismic event, but for a much longer duration. Duration is very important. As duration gets longer, more and more energy gets impart...