Power

Powering Virginia

By Stephen Faleski Staff Writer

About 15% of the electricity Dominion Energy supplies to its Virginia and North Carolina customers comes from Surry County, where a nuclear power plant has been operating since the early 1970s.

Reactor No. 1 went online in December 1972. Reactor No. 2 followed in May 1973. Together, they produce enough electricity to power roughly 420,000 homes.

The plant is located near the southern bank of the James River, about seven miles outside the town of Surry and 12 miles from Smithfield. It employs about 900 people, and the resulting public service corporation taxes Dominion Energy pays account for more than 50% of the county government’s annual income.

The plant, which will reach its 50th anniversary this year, has seen its share of controversy over the decades.

In 1979, according to The Smithfield Times’ archives, a jury found two men guilty of intentionally damaging the plant’s nuclear fuel assemblies after they’d argued at their trial that their goal was to shock Dominion — then known as the Virginia Electric & Power Co., or VEPCO — into improving the safety and security of their nuclear plants. As the fuel assemblies were new, and had not yet been activated, no radiation was released.

Then, in 1985, Surry’s Board of Supervisors approved a conditional use permit allowing the plant to store its spent nuclear fuel above ground in dry casks, over the objection of several nearby residents.

More recently, in 2021, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Dominion’s request to continue operating the plant into the 2050s, by which point it will have been operating for double its originally permitted 40-year lifespan.

On the flip side of the issue, nuclear power plants don’t emit greenhouse gases. A 2020 state law known as the Virginia Clean Economy Act requires nearly all coal-fired power plants to close by the end of 2024, and for Dominion to be 100% carbon-free by 2045.

The power plant, as it stands today, is “not the same” as the one that began operating in the 1970s, according to Dominion spokesman Ken Holt.

“Several major components have been replaced or upgraded over the years including the reactor vessel head, heat exchangers, transformers, and the steam generators,” Holt told The Smithfield Times in 2021. “We also have a comprehensive inspection program that monitors equipment performance to look for deficiencies and declining performance so that repairs or replacement can be scheduled. … Our spent fuel is safely stored in the spent fuel pools at the plant. After it’s been in the pool for long enough, it’s moved into enclosed steel and concrete containers that are fortified against extreme events like earthquakes, fires, and hurricanes.” Top: Thick concrete domes cover the Surry Power Station’s two nuclear reactors. Right: A diagram on display at the power plant illustrates how nuclear reactors work.