New
York Times: Since the 5.8-magnitude earthquake that struck
the US’s East Coast on 23 August, Virginia’s
North Anna nuclear plant has emerged as a test case on whether
nuclear plant designs in the Northeast are quake-resistant. The
plant, owned by Dominion, sits 10–12 miles from the
quake’s epicenter. Despite a shock bigger than anything
its designers thought it would ever experience, the plant
appears to have suffered only cosmetic damage. Jennifer
Pollard, a Dominion engineer, said she has inspected every inch
of every pipe, connection, valve, and motor in the building and
has not found anything significant so far. Dominion is
following an inspection procedure laid out by the Electric
Power Research Institute, a nonprofit utility consortium that
has inspected dozens of industrial plants hit by earthquakes
around the world, writes Matthew Wald for the
New York Times.
