NRC correspondence with Duke Energy

A question that begs a definitive answer is whether an earthquake-tsunami sequence, such as that which struck Japan a few years ago, is the kind of natural event that could repeat itself at U-S nuclear plants.  U-S plants are designed to include monitoring instruments to detect seismic activity and trigger a plant shutdown if the ground motion exceeds a specified level.  Nevertheless, whether on-site staff at Duke Energy’s Oconee plant is adequate to respond to a loss of electric power is something that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to monitor.  There was an NRC letter this week to Duke. “We asked them to look at their staffing plan, to look at their resources available if, in fact, they did have to respond to that kind of accident scenario,” says Roger Hannah, NRC spokesman at the Atlanta office.