SQUG / SEQUAL Newsletter June 2009

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Recent Earthquakes

A number of earthquakes have

occurred in 2009. Several are

highlighted below using information

from the USGS and other websites.

L’Aquila, Italy

The most significant earthquake so far

this year occurred in central Italy near

the town of L’Aquila. The April 6th

M6.3 earthquake killed over 290

people, injured 1,000, damaged

10,000 buildings, and left over 40,000

people homeless. The Santa Maria Paganica church in L'Aquila (below)

was one of many historic buildings

damaged in the quake.

Costa Rica

A M6.1 earthquake occurred on

January 8th in Costa Rica about 20

miles north of San Jose. About 20

people were killed, many injured, and

several buildings damaged.

Landslides blocked roads in the area

and electricity was disrupted in parts

of San Jose.

U.S. Earthquakes in 2009

So far this year (as of June 20) the

USGS has recorded 1650 earthquakes

in the United States. Here is the

distribution of magnitudes from about

0 (no Magnitude) up to 5.9. As you

can see, the vast majority are small to

moderate earthquakes (M2.0-3.9). Ongoing Earthquake Investigations

We continue to pursue earthquake

experience data collection for two

fairly recent earthquakes; the October

2006 M6.7 earthquake in Hawaii and

the July 2007 M6.8 earthquake near

the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant

in Japan.

Previous SQUG work on the 2006

Kihulo Bay earthquake included

prioritization of potential SQUG database sites, generation of ground

motion estimates for selected sites,

and development of an Access

database to facilitate data collection.

You may recall that the ground

motions at several sites were

surprisingly high (at or above the

SQUG Reference Spectrum).

Follow-up visits are being arranged

for several sites to collect data. These

sites include:

• Waimea Power Plant

• Ouli Power Plant

• HEP Independent Power Producer

site

• Wind farms

• Substations

• Keahole Power Plant

Welcome to the first SQUG/SEQUAL Newsletter of 2009. Seismic issues continue to be active in our operating plants and around the world. Here are selected highlights from the year so far.

John Richards

SQUG/SEQUAL Chairman

In This Edition Recent Earthquakes ................1

Ongoing Earthquake Investigations .....................1

SQUG Training ........................2

2009 Winter Meeting...............2

Licensing SQUG Data ..............2

SQUG Website and List Server Updates ....................2

IAEA EBP on Seismic Safety of NPPs ...............................3

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Restart ...3

GI-199 Update .........................3

SQUG / SEQUAL Newsletter June 2009

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2009 Winter Meeting

We’ve had a change of plans

for the 2009 Winter Meeting.

At last winter’s meeting, the

attendees voted to have the

2009 meeting on December 2

through 4 in New Orleans or

Las Vegas.

Bob Kassawara was having

some trouble getting reasonable

hotel rates in either city so he

was pleasantly surprised when

he received a call from the

Hyatt Gainey Ranch in

Scottsdale, Arizona with

“an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

We do not typically veer from the members’ meeting requests but for some

reason this year the hotel rates in New Orleans and Las Vegas were well above

the range we typically try to achieve. The Hyatt Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale is a beautiful hotel and has offered a very reasonable rate for our meeting.

We’ll send out an official meeting notice with additional information (times,

meeting agenda, and hotel reservation info) as we get closer to the meeting.

We hope you will join us on December 2 through 4 in Scottsdale.

At the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear

power plant, our work to date has

focused on supporting TEPCO’s

restart activities and participation in

the IAEA EBP.

TEPCO is restarting Unit 7 right now

(see page 3) and work continues on

activities supporting restart of the

remaining six units. Understandably, those restart support activities have

precedence over SQUG data

collection, although the extensive

TEPCO walkdown activities will

provide the basis for eventual SQUG

data collection. As the units return to

service, we’ll work with them to get

the equipment performance data.

We have already begun internal

discussions about determining the

proper equipment capacity spectra for the K-K equipment as well as

considerations for the positive effects

of seismic design practices for the

installed equipment. We will need to

resolve those questions, or at least

determine conservative practices for

treating K-K data in the eSQUG

database.

SQUG Training

EdF is sponsoring a session of the

SQUG Seismic Capability Engineer

(SCE) Walkdown Training Course in

Lyon, France the week of September

21, 2009. There are a few openings for additional students from other

SQUG members. Paul Baughman is

coordinating the training

arrangements. Please contact him if

you have any questions

(pbaughman@arescorporation.com,

603-773-5560).

In addition, the SCE Training

materials were updated with some

minor corrections to the reference

material and student information. If you have a copy of the materials, you

should have received an updated

version of the CDs (Version 4.2) from

EPRI. Note that the video DVDs

have not changed. If you would like a

copy of the latest information, SQUG

members can order it through

EPRIWeb or contact Colette Handy

(CHandy@epri.com, 704-595-2239).

Licensing SQUG Data

As you know, we have been exploring

a number of license arrangements

with university researchers who have

expressed interest in the SQUG data.

We completed a license agreement

with a professor at the University of

Colorado to use eSQUG information.

The agreement is limited to activities related to estimating equipment

fragilities for commercial facilities

and it includes a provision that allows

EPRI a 45 day review period on any

resulting papers prior to public release

and publication.

We have also been working for about

2 years on a license with the Multi-

Disciplinary Center for Earthquake

Engineering Research (MCEER) at

the State University of New York

(SUNY) at Buffalo. This license

would be in two parts; one for

commercial use of SQUG information

by MCEER commercial partners and

the second would be for University of

Buffalo researchers. We thought it

was complete about 3 months ago but

it has stalled one more time between

the lawyers.

Hopefully these unfortunate delays won’t prevent completion of the

eventual agreement, and beneficial

partnership for both sides.

SQUG Website and List Server Updates

The SQUG website has been updated

recently to implement a number of

improvements. The old web address

has been shut down and the new

address is http://squgweb.mpr.com.

Users will be redirected automatically

to the new site, although you might

want to make a note of the new

address in your web favorites.

SQUG / SEQUAL Newsletter June 2009

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Most of the website improvements

were back end updates to the server,

operating system, and development

software that you don’t see much as a

user, but they tend to gum up the

works if they don’t happen.

If you haven’t been on the site in a

while, we suggest you check it out. It

is chock full of SQUG information.

Recent postings include the minutes

and presentations from the 2008

Winter meeting, updated membership

lists, and information about the recent

Seismic Housekeeping Benchmarking

report. We also offer one important heads up; both the User IDs and

passwords are now case specific! If

you have any problems logging in,

please contact Joanne Breth

(jbreth@mpr.com, 703-519-0515) or

Dick Starck (rgstarck@mpr.com,

703-519-0200).

We have also changed the system

used for the SQUG List Server.

Some of our members were running

into problems with the previous

system operated through Yahoo

Groups. Therefore, we converted to a

list server hosted by MPR. The new

list severer e-mail address is

SQUGLIST@mpr.com. Again, if

you run into trouble or have questions, contact Joanne Breth or

Dick Starck.

IAEA EBP on Seismic Safety of NPPs

There are a number of activities being

performed in the IAEA EBP on

Seismic Safety. One task that we’d

like to bring to your attention is a

draft IAEA Safety Report on Pre-

Earthquake Planning and Post-

Earthquake Actions for Existing

Nuclear Power Plants. The Safety

Report is an extension of EPRI’s NP-

6695, Guidelines for Nuclear Plant

Response to an Earthquake. It

provides additional guidance for

earthquake levels significantly above

the OBE and even above the SSE.

If you would like a copy of the

current draft, please contact John

Richards (john.richards@duke-

energy.com, 704-382-3916).

Kashiwazaki Kariwa Restart

TEPCO received permission to restart

Unit 7 at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa

Nuclear Plant and they are performing

restart testing.

Testing started on May 8th and they

began generating power on May 19th.

TEPCO satisfactorily completed

testing on June 19th and will be

reporting the results to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA)

of the Ministry of Economy, Trade

and Industry.

This is great news for TEPCO and is

the result of their countless hours of

hard work. It is a terrific achievement

for TEPCO and for the nuclear

industry.

GI 199 Update

EPRI and NRC Research

representatives have been working

independently on a risk informed

screening process to determine the

impact of updated seismic hazard characterizations in the Central and

Eastern United States (CEUS). So far

they have determined that there are

important differences in the screening

methods and results between EPRI

and NRC.

To help sort through those

differences, they are conducting

sensitivity studies on 9 representative

sites. Those studies should help

identify the differences in the various methods and the significance of those

differences in the final screening

results.

The NRC expects to decide on a

course of action for GI 199 in the Fall

of 2009 after meeting with EPRI.

There are tentative plans for a public

meeting sometime this summer so if

you’re interested, you may want to

watch the NRC website for an announcement.

In Closing

Just in case you haven’t heard, Bob

Kassawara had back surgery recently

to correct a herniated disk that had

him in pain since early in the year.

We all wish him a speedy recovery

and a successful return to the more

routine headaches of working with us!

As always, we hope this Newsletter

helps you keep up to date on our

SQUG/SEQUAL activities and other

significant seismic issues. If you have any comments, thoughts, or

contributions for the Newsletters

please let us know.

We hope everyone has an enjoyable

and safe summer!

SQUG/SEQUAL Chairman

Duke Energy

Phone: (704) 382-3916

Fax: (704) 382-7375

john.richards@duke-energy.com

SQUG/SEQUAL Program Manager

EPRI

Phone: (650) 855-2775

Fax: (650) 855-1026 rkassawa@epri.com