And Virginia's nuclear plant at Lake Anna loses offsite power

[Flaxbee]

Yes indeed, I saw that one coming:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-23/dominion-virginia-nuclear-plant-loses-power-in-quake-is-running-on-diesel.html

Dominion Resources Inc. has lost all offsite power at its North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia after an earthquake struck.

The plant is operating using diesel generators, Beth Hayden, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said today.

[gateley]

1. That's okay, the generators are going and all the new plants

in the system will have even BETTER generators! Not to worry, nuclear power is safe! :grr:

[TheWraith]

3. I really don't understand the terror people have about anything nuclear.

Other than to assume, frankly, that it's the result of growing up surrounded factually-dubious anti-nuclear diatribes. People live in fear of the wildly remote possibility of a serious accident, while ignoring the 40,000 Americans a year who are killed by coal-fired electricity. You would have to have ten Chernobyls a year for nuclear to kill as many people as coal does.

[Tesha]

4. The "terror" is probably due to the fact that the FMEAs are routinely proven...

...to have omitted one or more critical failure mechanisms
that later directly contribute to a failure.

For example:

1. Worker lights material on fire with candle while searching
for air leak.

2. Diesel fuel tanks float away, leaving standby diesel generators
without any fuel to run them.

Tesha

[gateley]

9. I won't debate that because I think both are bad. I don't care

which is "worse", they both do plenty of damage. And the most recent "relatively remote" serious accident in Japan is continuing to harm the planet and people, as is coal, I've no doubt.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Is anyone next to the plant experiencing a loss?

[MineralMan]

6. Generally, nuclear power plants have their own, dedicated lines

bringing power to the plant. A failure at the plant would not necessarily affect anyone else.

[FBaggins]

14. Except, of course, the people who get power from the plant.

Quite a bit of grid redundancy, but it's probably in the tens of thousands.

[MineralMan]

22. This isn't about the power coming from the plant. That stopped

when the plant SCRAMed. Incoming power is not from the plant, but from the grid, and the plant has its own high voltage feed lines. If it drops its output off the grid, the grid fills in. Probably nobody nearby noticed anything at all.

[Throckmorton]

25. Well, Kind of,

The lines from the generator to the switchyard via the station and aux transformers are dedicated to the plants. From the switchyard busses out is the grid its common with other 345 KV offsite sources. I suspect that the loss of offsite power is damage to the switchyard.

At the moment I can't confirm this, as the data link is down to the site.

[Fred Engels]

5. That's really scary...this thing could kill thousands like the one in Japan!!!

:scared:

[MineralMan]

7. Extremely unlikely.

You can relax a little, I think.

[Fred Engels]

11. Heh heh...

:evilgrin:

[MineralMan]

15. If you were trying to be facetious or funny, you failed.

Sorry.

[Fred Engels]

27. Apparently I did. I assumed DUers would know that only about 3 people died there.

I am only an egg.

[Poll_Blind]

8. I think those concerns are premature. There has been NO severe damage to...

...the infrastructure which would be used to bring more fuel/generators/etc to the plant should their generators suffer an (unlikely) catastrophic failure for some reason. In other words, supply arteries are clear to bring in help, equipment, supplies, etc. should the plant require it. This was simply not the case in Japan and that exacerbated their situation greatly.

PB

[Fred Engels]

12. Whew...thanks. I was afraid the thing would kill millions like three mile island did

:silly:

[TheWraith]

23. Uh... you know the one in Japan hasn't killed anyone, right?

Well, with the exception of the workers there who were killed by the tsunami, and one of the cleanup workers who died from a heart attack.

On edit: nevermind, I see now you were being sarcastic.

[madinmaryland]

10. If you can believe it, Sonia slep through the quake. Roosevelt freaked out!

How did your furries do?

[Throckmorton]

13. Dominion Speaks,

Dominion Virginia Power declared an Alert at North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Va., this afternoon after an earthquake in central Virginia. The reactors have been shut down safely, and no major damage has been reported. (Tripped on Negative Rate, not a manual scram).

The station declared an Alert, the next to the lowest of the four emergency classifications of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Both reactors have been shut down. The emergency diesel generators started as off-site power from the electric grid was lost. No release of radioactive material has occurred beyond those minor releases associated with normal station operations.

The earthquake was felt at the company’s other Virginia nuclear power station, Surry Power Station in southeast Virginia, but not as strongly. Both units at Surry continue to operate safely.

The earthquake also caused the company’s newest power station, Bear Garden in Buckingham County, to shut down automatically.

U.S. nuclear power stations, including Dominion’s four stations, were built to seismic standards for their regions.

[FBaggins]

17. U.S. nuclear power stations, including Dominion’s four stations, were built to seismic standards for

That's not much of a statement.

The "region" for this plant hasn't seen many quakes like this. It's about equal to the largest I've found recorded (1897) for the state.

[originalpckelly]

18. And these plants were only built to sustain a 6.0

This was 5.9, which is damn close enough. Yes, it is a bigger difference than what the linear 5.9-6.0 would seem to indicate, but this is the real world. Who know how all the necessary infrastructure held up.

Until we have heard that all of the plumbing is OK, and the pressure vessel hasn't seen any damage, don't trust them. And even when they say it's OK, don't trust them. And if they say the pumps are OK, don't trust them.

These people are operating a socially dangerous thing, it affects all, and they must show themselves to be of that standard. That they can deliver those kinds of guarantees.

[FBaggins]

19. There's a great deal of misunderstanding of what that means.

"Built to sustain" doesn't mean that the things crumble to dust when a quake inches just above that line.

Who know how all the necessary infrastructure held up.

We're about to find out.

[originalpckelly]

20. I completely agree with you.

We just have to wait and see, but at the first sign of anything even slightly odd, start looking for holes in their story.

[Throckmorton]

21. Actually, Dominion owns 7 operating stations

and a safestored BWR

[originalpckelly]

16. Just like Fukushima, only they weren't just inundated with a shitload of water.

However, the problem of decay heat will present itself eventually. These are PWR reactors which operate at a much higher temperature than the BWR type at Fukushima. This means that there is a much bigger problem if the pressure vessels that maintain the pressure at a high enough level that the water won't boil off are damaged.

However, that doesn't mean that this is all bad. As long as they haven't seen any cracks in this vessel that keeps the pressure high enough the water won't boil and they can pump new cooling water in, then they should be fine.

The government will move heaven and earth to give them the diesel they need. Even if the generators should fail for some reason, which is very unlikely, the they could probably very quickly manage to get new generators in. And I'm willing to guarantee you that the reactors have more than enough batteries to cover any installation time, because every person who could be spared would be flown there on the double.

The only real risk here is if they have lost the ability to maintain pressure in the reactors/keep the cooling process going. That's it.

If the pumps are OK, if the various pipes giving the reactor water are OK, the reactor pressure vessel didn't see any cracks, and they have enough power, then all is OK. No worries, and don't let the fear mongers get you. Nuclear power is bad, but not for these kinds of reasons usually.

And this plant was designed to only sustain a shake from a 6.0. In the real world that might mean it could take more vibration, or it could mean that that was a bullshit number and it really can't take that.

Now, all that said, you should never take the word of a power plant, the company that owns it, or the government, because generally they are all lying douches.

[MineralMan]

24. Also, this quake was a whole lot smaller than the Fukushima one.

A whole lot. Several orders of magnitude smaller, in fact.

[Throckmorton]

26. About a 0.05% as big.

give or take some. Local ground motion is really whats important, and those seismographs are all plate type, as I recall. So it will take a while to gather the date.