North Anna Nuclear Generating Station
Encyclopedia
The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant
on a 1075 acres (4.4 km²) site in Louisa County
, Virginia
. The site is operated by Dominion Generation
company and is jointly owned by the Dominion Virginia Power corporation (88.4%) and by the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative
(11.6%).
The plant has two Westinghouse
pressurized water reactor
s which went on-line in 1978 and 1980 respectively. Together the reactors generate 1.79 gigawatts of power, which is distributed mainly to the greater Richmond
area and to Northern Virginia
. In March 2003, the NRC approved 20 year license extensions for both Units 1 & 2.
An artificial lake, Lake Anna
, was constructed on the North Anna River
to provide a reservoir of water coolant for use with the nuclear plant. Exhaustive studies have shown that the lake's abundant aquatic life are not harmed by the plant's operation.
Dominion currently owns nuclear power plants in Virginia (North Anna, Surry), Connecticut (Millstone
), and Wisconsin (Kewaunee
). North Anna is similar in design and appearance to Surry Power Station
.
defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16.1 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80.5 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16.1 km) of North Anna was 21,396, an increase of 15.7 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80.5 km) was 1,912,015, an increase of 22.6 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Richmond (40 miles to city center).
(NRC) issued the ESP on November 27, 2007.
On the same day, Dominion submitted an application for a Combined Construction and Operating License
(COL) for a 1,520 MWe
GE
–Hitachi
Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor
(ESBWR), designated as North Anna Unit 3.
In 2009, having failed to agree on terms for an engineering construction and procurement deal with GE-Hitachi to actually build the reactor, Dominion issued a new request for proposals from reactor vendors.
In 2010, Dominion announced that it had selected a 1,700 MWe, US-specific version of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
' (MHI) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) for the potential Unit 3.
Proposed plans to add a new reactor to the North Anna site have brought public protest. On August 7, 2008 six activists from the Peoples Alliance for Clean Energy were arrested at the North Anna Information Center for trespassing.
On Oct 29, 2010 Dominion president Tom Farrell told investors that Dominion had decided to slow its development of the proposed third reactor and wait until the combined construction permit-operating license (COL) was approved by the NRC before deciding to complete the project. This approval is expected in early 2013.
According to the USGS, two distinct seismic zones are located in Virginia. The Central Virginia Seismic Zone and the Giles County Seismic Zone. Both of these zones produce recurrent small earthquakes at least every few years http://geology.com/usgs/virginia-earthquakes/.The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station, located 40 miles north west of Richmond, lies within the Central Virginia Seismic Zone.
According to the Huffington Post, this 1977 Justice Department memo "..focused on how the power company and federal regulatory officials went to efforts to not make public the knowledge of geologic faulting at North Anna. "[V]irtually the entire Office of Regulation of the [Nuclear Regulator Commission was] ...well aware of the fault and determined not to take any immediate action," according to the memo. A government attorney, Bradford Whitman, did not recommend prosecution at the time, but the power company was eventually fined $32,500 for making false statements during the licensing process, according to the DOJ memo."
occurred, centered south of Mineral, Virginia
, and, 11 miles from the North Anna Nuclear Station. The Associated Press
reported the quake "was felt as far north as Rhode Island, New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Mass." The reactors automatically shut down and, because of a loss of offsite power, four diesel generators started up to supply electricity to safety systems. The plant reported an "Alert" status, the second lowest level of four NRC emergency classifications, until 11:16am on August, 24, 2011. One of the generators suffered a coolant leak and stopped working. A fifth standby generator was activated to replace the broken unit, which was repaired. Offsite power was restored later on August 23. Dominion also reported that the aftershocks did not affect the power plant. Also on August 24, Dominion announced that it had ended the "Notice of Unusual Event", the least serious of the NRC emergency classifications, at the North Anna Power Station following inspection of equipment susceptible to seismic activity.
According to local Virginia media station, WHSV, "The two North Anna reactors are among 27 in the eastern and central U.S. that may need upgrades because those plants are more likely to get hit with an earthquake larger than the one on which their design was based, according to a preliminary Nuclear Regulatory Commission review." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the operating licenses of these plants for an additional 20 years back in 2003. Dominion has publicly stated that on-site, spent-nuclear-fuel long-term storage canisters shifted during the earthquake along with various building cracks, all while maintaining such damage does not represent unsafe operating conditions. As of September 5, 2011, Dominion did not have a firm restart date for the reactors.
Nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors. As in a conventional thermal power station the heat is used to generate steam which drives a steam turbine connected to a generator which produces electricity.Nuclear power plants are usually...
on a 1075 acres (4.4 km²) site in Louisa County
Louisa County, Virginia
Louisa County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2010, the population was 33,153. The county seat is Louisa.- History :...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. The site is operated by Dominion Generation
Dominion Resources
Dominion Resources Inc. , commonly referred to as Dominion, is a power and energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia and North Carolina and supplies natural gas to parts of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and eastern North Carolina...
company and is jointly owned by the Dominion Virginia Power corporation (88.4%) and by the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative is an electric generation and transmission cooperative headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia. ODEC provides wholesale power to its 11 member electric cooperatives in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Through these member cooperatives, ODEC provided over 11 million...
(11.6%).
The plant has two Westinghouse
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
pressurized water reactor
Pressurized water reactor
Pressurized water reactors constitute a large majority of all western nuclear power plants and are one of three types of light water reactor , the other types being boiling water reactors and supercritical water reactors...
s which went on-line in 1978 and 1980 respectively. Together the reactors generate 1.79 gigawatts of power, which is distributed mainly to the greater Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
area and to Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
. In March 2003, the NRC approved 20 year license extensions for both Units 1 & 2.
An artificial lake, Lake Anna
Lake Anna
Lake Anna is one of the largest freshwater inland lakes in Virginia, covering an area of 13,000 acres , and located 72 miles south of Washington, D.C. in Louisa and Spotsylvania counties...
, was constructed on the North Anna River
North Anna River
The North Anna River is a principal tributary of the Pamunkey River, about long, in central Virginia in the United States. Via the Pamunkey and York rivers, it is part of the watershed of Chesapeake Bay...
to provide a reservoir of water coolant for use with the nuclear plant. Exhaustive studies have shown that the lake's abundant aquatic life are not harmed by the plant's operation.
Dominion currently owns nuclear power plants in Virginia (North Anna, Surry), Connecticut (Millstone
Millstone Nuclear Power Plant
The Millstone Nuclear Power Station is the only nuclear power generation site in Connecticut. It is located at a former quarry in Waterford...
), and Wisconsin (Kewaunee
Kewaunee Nuclear Generating Station
The Kewaunee Power Station occupies a site in Carlton, Wisconsin, southeast of Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Kewaunee was the fourth nuclear power plant built in Wisconsin, and the 44th built in the United States.-History:...
). North Anna is similar in design and appearance to Surry Power Station
Surry Nuclear Power Plant
Surry Power Station is a nuclear power plant located in Surry County in southeastern Virginia. The power station lies on an 840-acre site adjacent to the James River across from Jamestown, slightly upriver from Smithfield and Newport News...
.
Surrounding population
The Nuclear Regulatory CommissionNuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...
defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16.1 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80.5 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16.1 km) of North Anna was 21,396, an increase of 15.7 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80.5 km) was 1,912,015, an increase of 22.6 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Richmond (40 miles to city center).
Unit 3
North Anna is currently going through the lengthy process of obtaining regulatory permission to build an additional unit at the site. Dominion Nuclear North Anna, LLC submitted its application for an Early Site Permit (ESP) for the North Anna site on September 25, 2003. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory CommissionNuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...
(NRC) issued the ESP on November 27, 2007.
On the same day, Dominion submitted an application for a Combined Construction and Operating License
Combined Construction and Operating License
The Combined Construction and Operating License replaced the previous Draft Regulatory Guide 1145 as the licensing process for new nuclear power plants in the United States...
(COL) for a 1,520 MWe
MWE
MWE may refer to:*Manufacturer's Weight Empty*McDermott Will & Emery*Midwest Express, an airline*Merowe Airport - IATA code*Multiword expressionMWe may refer to:*Megawatt electrical...
GE
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
–Hitachi
Hitachi, Ltd.
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...
Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor
Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor
The type of nuclear reactor formally known as the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor is a passively safe generation III+ reactor derived from the predecessor Simplified Boiling Water Reactor and the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor...
(ESBWR), designated as North Anna Unit 3.
In 2009, having failed to agree on terms for an engineering construction and procurement deal with GE-Hitachi to actually build the reactor, Dominion issued a new request for proposals from reactor vendors.
In 2010, Dominion announced that it had selected a 1,700 MWe, US-specific version of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
, or MHI, is a Japanese company. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi Group.-History:In 1870 Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi took a lease of Government-owned Nagasaki Shipyard. He named it Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works, and started the shipbuilding business on a full scale...
' (MHI) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) for the potential Unit 3.
Proposed plans to add a new reactor to the North Anna site have brought public protest. On August 7, 2008 six activists from the Peoples Alliance for Clean Energy were arrested at the North Anna Information Center for trespassing.
On Oct 29, 2010 Dominion president Tom Farrell told investors that Dominion had decided to slow its development of the proposed third reactor and wait until the combined construction permit-operating license (COL) was approved by the NRC before deciding to complete the project. This approval is expected in early 2013.
Seismic risk
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at North Anna was 1 in 22,727, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.According to the USGS, two distinct seismic zones are located in Virginia. The Central Virginia Seismic Zone and the Giles County Seismic Zone. Both of these zones produce recurrent small earthquakes at least every few years http://geology.com/usgs/virginia-earthquakes/.The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station, located 40 miles north west of Richmond, lies within the Central Virginia Seismic Zone.
Known fault lines
During the construction of original nuclear reactors at North Anna, the utility learned of the existence of fault lines within the construction site of the proposed plants from its outside independent engineering firm, Stone & Webster, who had been hired by the utility to access the proposed nuclear plant locations. The utility was fined $32,000.00 by the government for concealing this information.According to the Huffington Post, this 1977 Justice Department memo "..focused on how the power company and federal regulatory officials went to efforts to not make public the knowledge of geologic faulting at North Anna. "[V]irtually the entire Office of Regulation of the [Nuclear Regulator Commission was] ...well aware of the fault and determined not to take any immediate action," according to the memo. A government attorney, Bradford Whitman, did not recommend prosecution at the time, but the power company was eventually fined $32,500 for making false statements during the licensing process, according to the DOJ memo."
2011 Virginia earthquake
At 1:51pm on August 23, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake2011 Virginia earthquake
The 2011 Virginia earthquake occurred on August 23, 2011, at 1:51 pm EDT in the Piedmont region of the U.S. state of Virginia. The epicenter, in Louisa County, was northwest of Richmond and south-southwest of the town of Mineral...
occurred, centered south of Mineral, Virginia
Mineral, Virginia
Mineral is a town in Louisa County, Virginia, United States. The population was 424 at the 2000 census.-History:Mineral was originally known as Tolersville, but adopted its current name when it incorporated in 1902 due to the mining industry that supported the community...
, and, 11 miles from the North Anna Nuclear Station. The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported the quake "was felt as far north as Rhode Island, New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Mass." The reactors automatically shut down and, because of a loss of offsite power, four diesel generators started up to supply electricity to safety systems. The plant reported an "Alert" status, the second lowest level of four NRC emergency classifications, until 11:16am on August, 24, 2011. One of the generators suffered a coolant leak and stopped working. A fifth standby generator was activated to replace the broken unit, which was repaired. Offsite power was restored later on August 23. Dominion also reported that the aftershocks did not affect the power plant. Also on August 24, Dominion announced that it had ended the "Notice of Unusual Event", the least serious of the NRC emergency classifications, at the North Anna Power Station following inspection of equipment susceptible to seismic activity.
According to local Virginia media station, WHSV, "The two North Anna reactors are among 27 in the eastern and central U.S. that may need upgrades because those plants are more likely to get hit with an earthquake larger than the one on which their design was based, according to a preliminary Nuclear Regulatory Commission review." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the operating licenses of these plants for an additional 20 years back in 2003. Dominion has publicly stated that on-site, spent-nuclear-fuel long-term storage canisters shifted during the earthquake along with various building cracks, all while maintaining such damage does not represent unsafe operating conditions. As of September 5, 2011, Dominion did not have a firm restart date for the reactors.
Reactor data
The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station consists of two operational reactors, two originally planned units were cancelled. One additional unit is planned.| Reactor unit | Reactor type | Capacity | Construction started | Electricity grid connection | Commercial operation | Shutdown | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net | Gross | ||||||
| North Anna-1 | Westinghouse 3-loop | 903 MW | 973 MW | 02.19.1971 | 04.19.1978 | 06.06.1978 | |
| North Anna-2 | Westinghouse 3-loop | 972 MW | 994 MW | 02.19.1971 | 08.25.1980 | 12.14.1980 | |
| North Anna-3 (former project) | B&W 145 | 907 MW | 950 MW | 06.01.1971 | Cancelled construction on 11.01.1982 | ||
| North Anna-4 (former project) | B&W 145 | 907 MW | 950 MW | 12.01.1971 | Cancelled construction on 11.01.1980 | ||
| North Anna-3 (planned) | US-APWR | 1500 MW | MW | ||||