THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701250317
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 38 lines
Virginia Power temporarily shut down its 800-megawatt Surry 1 power plant Friday morning to repair a ``pinhole-sized'' leak in a steam pipe, the company said.
The incident at the company's Gravel Neck nuclear power station posed no threat to the health and safety of the public, Virginia Power spokesman Jim Norvelle said.
The power station is about 40 miles west of Norfolk on the James River.
Surry 2, the station's other reactor, remained at full operating capacity, Norvelle said.
The leak was caught late Thursday by a worker.
``An operator doing a routine surveillance of a nearby valve saw the indications of escaping steam,'' Norvelle said. ``It was a great catch on his part - we're talking some tight spaces.''
The worker alerted supervisors, who decided to gradually reduce the unit's energy output to zero.
Pressurized water reactors such as Surry contain two independent water systems - the first system is enclosed and contains pressurized, superhot, irradiated water.
The second system transfers heat from the first one to turn water from the James River into steam. That 1,050-degree steam spins the plant's turbines, which drive generators to produce electricity.
The leak occurred in the latter system and involved no radioactive substances.
``This was the conservative and safe decision to make,'' Norvelle said of the shutdown. A mild weekend is forecast, so the shutdown should not affect customers, he said. MEMO: Bloomberg Energy Service contributed to this report.