The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant on a 1,075-acre (435Â ha) site in Louisa County, Virginia, in the Mid-Atlantic United States. 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 reactors which went on-line in 1978 and 1980 respectively. Together the reactors generate 1.79Â 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.
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.
Surrounding population
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16Â km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80Â km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16Â 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 (80Â 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 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 GEâ€"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.
In 2013, it was announced that the ESBWR design would be pursued after all. Dominion will amend its COL application to reflect the ESBWR technology by the end of 2013 and expects to receive the COL "no earlier than late 2015." Dominion noted that it has not yet committed to building a new unit at North Anna.
In October 2015, the Virginia Attorney-General's Office called for the abandonment of the project because of the cost burden on consumers [1].
On January 19, 2017, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that its staff had completed its Final Safety Evaluation Report for a Combined License for a proposed reactor at the North Anna site. The report concludes there are no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the license for construction and operation of the proposed reactor. The NRC staff will provide the report and the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the North Anna application to the Commission for the mandatory hearing phase of the licensing process.
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. 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 assess 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."
Incidents
2011 Virginia earthquake
At 1:51pm on August 23, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake 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 December 20, 2011, both units at North Anna Power Station have restarted, and are operating at full power.
17 February 2012
On-site groundwater was found to contain high level of tritium, the source of the tritium leak was unknown
14 December 2016 12:06
Some fuel oil was believed to be released underground, the source of leakage was unknown.
Reactor data
The North Anna Nuclear Generating Station consists of two operational reactors, two originally planned units were cancelled. One additional unit is planned.
References
External links
- Dominion's nuclear page
- DoE Page
- Harper, Scott (2006-11-22). "North Anna reactor proposal passes big test". The Virginian-Pilot.Â