Allen Warren Co Nc

Stormy weather for nuclear plants?

Thirty seconds later, his pager buzzed again.  Surry’s Unit 1 reactor also had lost electric power, and it wasn’t on the maintenance schedule. Heacock thought, “This is not right.”  He immediately called his senior vice president in charge of nuclear operations, Dan Stoddard. Within 10 minutes, the two executives learned that a tornado had ripped through Surry, causing tremendous damage and knocking out electricity to both nuclear units. Of all the places to touch down, the tornado hit the switchyard, where power lines connect the station to the electric grid.

What’s more, the violent storm ripped through a garage, trapping inside a truck used to transport diesel fuel from an above-ground tank to a “station blackout generator” — a redundant system that supports a series of backup diesel generators in the case of an emergency. Fortunately, the truck was not needed, but the tornado “could not have picked a worse path,” Heacock says.

Dominion’s bout with Mother Nature came at an inopportune time. Just weeks before, headlines around the globe followed the near-meltdown of three reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which had been crippled by two freaks of nature: an earthquake and a tsunami. While Dominion restored service within hours, the unforeseen tornado at Surry presents an apt metaphor.  Post-Japan, there’s stormy weather ahead for nukes. It’s a dramatic turn of events given the renaissance predicted for the industry just a few years ago, one fueled by fears about global warming.

Some European countries are backing away from nukes altogether. Germany announced plans in May to shut down its 17 nuclear power plants by 2022, with plans to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources. Currently, Germany’s nuclear power stations supply just under a quarter of its electricity, about the same share as in the U.S. Switzerland also has approved a plan to forgo building new plants. In June, Italy joined the roster by thwarting a government effort to revive that country’s nuclear industry — abandoned in 1987 after the Chernobyl accident — during voting on a series of referendums.

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