| Surry Power Station | |
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| Country | United States |
| Location | Surry County, near Rushmere, Virginia |
| Coordinates | |
| Status | Operational |
| Commission date | Unit 1: December 22, 1972 Unit 2: May 1, 1973[1] |
| Licence expiration | Unit 1: May 25, 2032 Unit 2: January 19, 2033 |
| Owner(s) | Dominion Resources |
| Operator(s) | Dominion Generation |
| Architect(s) | Stone & Webster |
| Reactor information | |
| Reactors operational | 2 x 799 MW |
| Reactor type(s) | pressurized water reactor |
| Reactor supplier(s) | Westinghouse |
| Power generation information | |
| Annual generation | 13,282 GW·h |
| Website www.dom.com/about/stations/nuclear/surry/ |
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| As of 2008-11-17 | |
Surry Power Station is a nuclear power plant located in Surry County in southeastern Virginia. The power station lies on an 840-acre (3.4 km²) site adjacent to the James River across from Jamestown, slightly upriver from Smithfield and Newport News. Surry is operated by Dominion Generation and owned by Dominion Resources, Inc.
The plant has two triple-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactors which went on-line in 1972 and 1973 respectively. Each reactor produces approximately 800 megawatts of power, for a combined plant output of 1.6 gigawatts. Surry Power Station draws its condenser cycle water directly from the James River, removing the need for the imposing cooling towers often associated with nuclear plants. Repeated testing shows that Surry Power Station has minimal environmental impact and releases virtually no radiation or harmful emissions.
The station site was originally designed for four units; however, only two reactors were built. With increasing energy demands in the United States, it is possible that more reactors will be built at Surry in the next few decades. In 2003, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended the operating licenses for both reactors from forty to sixty years.
The Surry plant is similar in appearance and design to its "sister plant" North Anna Power Station, located northwest of Richmond in Louisa County, Virginia.
Surry was one of the plants analyzed in the NUREG-1150 safety analysis study.
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[2]
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Surry was 127,041, an increase of 21.9 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 km) was 2,292,642, an increase of 13.9 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Virginia Beach (47 miles to city center), Norfolk (30 miles to city center), Richmond (50 miles to city center).[3]
• On July 27, 1972, two workers were fatally scalded after a routine valve adjustment led to a steam release in a gap in a vent line.
• On December 9, 1986, a steam explosion in the non-nuclear part of Unit 2 killed 4 workers. This was the worst accident in terms of human cost of any in the US commercial nuclear industry.
• On April 16, 2011, a tornado touched down in the plant's electrical switching station, disabling primary power to the plant's cooling pumps and causing the backup diesel generators to activate without incident.[4][5]
• On August 23, 2011, an earthquake in central Virginia automatically shut down Dominion's North Anna reactors 11 miles from the epicenter. The similar Surry reactors continued in operation and Dominion declared a "Notice of Unusual Event" for the Surry plant which was lifted later the same day.[6]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Surry was 1 in 175,439, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[7][8]