I am RePublishing this recommended post from one week ago today with an update added.
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As people in the East pick up after the earthquake in Virgina we should realize that things could have been a lot worse. Things almost could have been as bad as they got in the Japanese catastrophe, not because of the stronger quake is likely but because earthquakes and Nuclear plants are a potentially deadly combination.
East Coast earthquake's epicenter near a nuclear plant
The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that shook the East Coast on Tuesday was centered near a nuclear power plant, raising concerns that the facility could have been damaged.
North Anna Power Station, located about 10 miles from the epicenter, is running its safety systems on backup generators after the quake knocked out the plant outside power source.
That's an alarmingly familiar scenario.
The North Anna plant was designed to withstand a 5.9 to 6.1 quake.
The quake came uncomfortably close to that maximum, said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that advocates stronger regulation of nuclear power.
We may be off the hook this time, but it was such a close call that we need to move quicker on reviewing all our nuclear plants, Lyman said.
Nuclear plants are designed to withstand the most powerful earthquakes likely to found at their sites and then some for a margin of safety. The North Anna plant should probably be upgraded to withstand a more powerful earthquake than the designers of the 33 year old plant had anticipated.
http://64.19.142.12/...
The North Anna plant has accumulated one of the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the U.S., Alvarez said, and the plants spent fuel pools contain four to five times more than their original designs intended.
This highlights the Nuclear Industry's festering problem of accumulating spent fuel rods at almost every reactor site across the country. It sounds like the North Anna plant is in the same predicament.
2 nuclear reactors taken offline after Va. quake
The Dominion-operated power plant is being run off three emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. The NRC and Dominion are sending people to inspect the plant.
A fourth diesel generator failed, but it wasn't considered an emergency because the other generators are working, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
So are we one diesel engine breaking down away from a nuclear crisis? Three out of four working is good enough to prevent a disaster so all is well? I don't think so.
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UPDATE: The NRC has dispatched a team of engineers and geologists to the North Anna Plant to investigate the possibility that during last weeks earthquake in Virgina ground motion exceeded the amount of ground motion the plant was designed to withstand.
UPDATE 4-Virginia quake may have exceeded nuclear plant design33 years ago.
By Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - The historic earthquake that
shut Dominion Resources Inc's (D.N) North Anna nuclear plant in
Virginia last week may have shaken the facility more than it
was designed to withstand, the U.S. nuclear regulator said on
Monday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had sent a
special inspection team to the plant rocked by the
5.8-magnitude quake, after initial reviews from Dominion
indicated the ground motion may have exceeded North Anna's
design parameters.
The plant cannot be restarted until the operator can show
no "functional damage" occurred to equipment needed for safe
operation, the NRC said
I'm pretty sure that I was the first writer in the country focus on how the quake came very close to exceeding the North Anna plant's design limitations.