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What Really Happened at Three Mile Island? American Nuclear Society interviews Lake Barrett — Transcript

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  1. 0:01hello
  2. 0:02and welcome to a special ans event on
  3. 0:06what really happened at three mile
  4. 0:08island i'm craig piercy i'm the
  5. 0:10executive director and ceo of ans and
  6. 0:14i'll be serving as today's moderator
  7. 0:16i'll be interviewing lake barrett who
  8. 0:19led the nrc's cleanup efforts at three
  9. 0:21mile island before we begin a few
  10. 0:24program notes we'll be taking a few
  11. 0:26questions toward the end of today's
  12. 0:28program
  13. 0:29please use the q a function to submit
  14. 0:31them we'll get to as many as we can in
  15. 0:34the time allotted
  16. 0:36note that the event is being recorded
  17. 0:37and a link to the video will be emailed
  18. 0:40to you later today
  19. 0:42certificates of attendance are available
  20. 0:44by request please see the chat for
  21. 0:47contact information
  22. 0:49and finally we ask that all participants
  23. 0:51adhere to the ans code of ethics and
  24. 0:54respectful behavior policy which can be
  25. 0:56found at ans.org
  26. 0:59okay let's get into it
  27. 1:03unit two of the three mile island
  28. 1:05nuclear power plant near middletown
  29. 1:07pennsylvania experienced a partial
  30. 1:09meltdown of its core on march 28 1979
  31. 1:14though its small radioactive releases
  32. 1:17had no discernible effects on plant
  33. 1:20personnel or the public
  34. 1:22it was the most serious accident in u.s
  35. 1:25commercial operating history
  36. 1:27the accident led to major reforms in the
  37. 1:30operation and regulation of u.s nuclear
  38. 1:32plants
  39. 1:33which helped make nuclear today one of
  40. 1:35the safest forms of energy available to
  41. 1:37humankind
  42. 1:40last month netflix released a four-part
  43. 1:43docu-drama entitled meltdown three-mile
  44. 1:46island
  45. 1:47in it the showrunners blend a mix of
  46. 1:50honestly great arcable footage of the
  47. 1:52event and its aftermath
  48. 1:54into a dark risky
  49. 1:57a dark narrative of risky cleanup
  50. 1:59maneuvers that put the quote survival of
  51. 2:02the east coast in the balance
  52. 2:05in may 2022
  53. 2:07the show spent one week on the top of
  54. 2:09u.s netflix top 10 list
  55. 2:12two weeks on the canada top ten
  56. 2:14and one each for slovakia and new
  57. 2:16zealand before the ratings fell off
  58. 2:19yet in our algorithm-driven world
  59. 2:22one that increasingly blurs the
  60. 2:24distinction between journalism and
  61. 2:26entertainment
  62. 2:28shows like the meltdown
  63. 2:30live on in the netflix recommendation
  64. 2:32engine
  65. 2:33and can exert a hidden pull on our
  66. 2:35collective perception of history
  67. 2:38that's why we at ans thought it was
  68. 2:40important to ensure that the historical
  69. 2:42record is there for anyone looking to
  70. 2:45answer the question
  71. 2:47what really happened at tmi
  72. 2:50now i'd like to introduce our guest lake
  73. 2:52barrett
  74. 2:53lake is an independent consultant in the
  75. 2:55energy field serving both government and
  76. 2:58commercial capacities in the nuclear
  77. 3:00energy and nuclear materials management
  78. 3:02areas for over five decades he currently
  79. 3:05supports the recovery of the fukushima
  80. 3:08nuclear reactor accident as a senior
  81. 3:10advisor to the japanese government and
  82. 3:12the tokyo electric power company
  83. 3:15at the nuclear regulatory commission
  84. 3:18he served at multiple senior technical
  85. 3:21and executive positions including his
  86. 3:23time as the on-site director and senior
  87. 3:26federal official for the cleanup of the
  88. 3:29three-mile island reactor accident
  89. 3:31for additional information on lake
  90. 3:34please see below or on the chat
  91. 3:36and so with that
  92. 3:38lake welcome thank you for joining us
  93. 3:41um
  94. 3:42glad you're here
  95. 3:44thank you craig pleasure to be here
  96. 3:46so let's start at the beginning
  97. 3:48how did lake barrett get into nuclear
  98. 3:52well um i graduated uh with a bs degree
  99. 3:55in mechanical engineering from
  100. 3:57university to connecticut in 1967
  101. 4:00my father had recently died and my
  102. 4:02mother was widow so i needed to stay
  103. 4:04close to home so i went to work at
  104. 4:06electric boat division of general
  105. 4:07dynamics in groton connecticut
  106. 4:10and worked as a first a s5w reactor test
  107. 4:14engineer uh training and then in design
  108. 4:17and construction operation uh i served
  109. 4:20as a
  110. 4:21radiological engineer for the last
  111. 4:24refueling of the uss nautilus
  112. 4:26also as a decommissioning engineer for
  113. 4:29the us triton our only two reactors so i
  114. 4:32got a lot of experience uh there at
  115. 4:34electric boat
  116. 4:35as adam rick over a contractor i was
  117. 4:38extremely indoctrinated in the admiral
  118. 4:40rickover nuclear culture management
  119. 4:42world which came to serve me very well
  120. 4:44later on in life
  121. 4:47so now
  122. 4:48on the day of the accident you obviously
  123. 4:51weren't there
  124. 4:52tell me a little bit about what you were
  125. 4:54doing in those first days when you were
  126. 4:56with the nrc
  127. 4:58okay i was with the nrc in the division
  128. 5:00of operating reactors in bethesda
  129. 5:02maryland on that day uh we'd heard that
  130. 5:05morning at 10 a.m
  131. 5:08that there had been a declared emergency
  132. 5:09at three mile island the nrc emergency
  133. 5:12operations center was activated in
  134. 5:14another adjacent building um and i
  135. 5:17reported there with many other people
  136. 5:19but there was a complete lack of
  137. 5:21information other than it was declared
  138. 5:24uh it was said there were high radiation
  139. 5:26levels in the uh containment building um
  140. 5:30we asked how why was that and the answer
  141. 5:33was that there was a uh transient uh due
  142. 5:36to the trip or the of the reactor and
  143. 5:39the cobalt 60 might be you know in the
  144. 5:41primary coolant system but the numbers
  145. 5:43were too high and we were very skeptical
  146. 5:46and wanted more information but there
  147. 5:48was no more information to be obtained
  148. 5:51from the control room because the
  149. 5:52operators themselves at that time uh
  150. 5:54were were confused as to exactly you
  151. 5:57know what had happened
  152. 6:01so uh now there's been some discussion
  153. 6:04about whether or not there was actually
  154. 6:06a hydrogen explosion that occurred on
  155. 6:09that on that first day and dan i think
  156. 6:12we
  157. 6:13we may have some pictures uh that we can
  158. 6:16put up that that that show some of the
  159. 6:18things that happened inside the reactor
  160. 6:20so i think we want to go on to
  161. 6:22go on beyond that and then beyond that
  162. 6:25one so uh you know like talk us you know
  163. 6:28talk us through some of these pictures
  164. 6:29was was there an explosion
  165. 6:32no there was not a detonation or an
  166. 6:35explosion of the hydrogen you know in
  167. 6:37the uh containment uh what happened was
  168. 6:40as the core was damaged and we already
  169. 6:41said the core was severely damaged in
  170. 6:43here for the first several years because
  171. 6:45we didn't know if there was any actually
  172. 6:47any melting of the core or not
  173. 6:49melting is a very difficult word insofar
  174. 6:52as is it a jane fonda meltdown or is it
  175. 6:54just the physical you know melting of
  176. 6:56you know of the fuel inside the reactor
  177. 6:58vessel
  178. 6:59but anyway what happened was a lot of
  179. 7:01hydrogen was released into the
  180. 7:03containment building uh around 1 pm on
  181. 7:06the 28th there was a
  182. 7:09deflagration a burning of it now
  183. 7:11basically it's something like if you
  184. 7:12turn your gas grill on and don't put a
  185. 7:15match in or a lighter in right away and
  186. 7:17then you do a little bit later you get a
  187. 7:18big woof and and a flame front goes
  188. 7:21through uh when we got into the
  189. 7:23containment building a year later we
  190. 7:25could see evidence of what happened as
  191. 7:28you can see in this picture here uh you
  192. 7:30can see the pressure spike of around two
  193. 7:32atmospheres um you know did collapse the
  194. 7:34drum uh the pressure wave threw a steel
  195. 7:37door open and and uh you know
  196. 7:39bent the door uh some of the other
  197. 7:41pictures please dan you had passed um
  198. 7:45there was a melted phone you can see
  199. 7:46from narration but but there was no
  200. 7:48shock wave there was no uh explosion per
  201. 7:51se because the phone still was sitting
  202. 7:53on the edge of the edge of the table um
  203. 7:55one of the other ones you can see uh the
  204. 7:59this is inside one of the cabinets you
  205. 8:00can see on the right hand side the paint
  206. 8:03was was peeled off the cover of the
  207. 8:06metal cabinet but inside were were
  208. 8:08plastics that were untouched and the one
  209. 8:11before that you can see
  210. 8:13um plastic that was wrapping on wooden
  211. 8:16scaffolding that is
  212. 8:17was charred
  213. 8:19but the scaffolding was not uh moved
  214. 8:22anywhere so there was no explosion
  215. 8:23inside there was a there was a rapid
  216. 8:25burn
  217. 8:28so you were
  218. 8:29you were at tmi twice right once
  219. 8:33immediately after the the events of
  220. 8:36march 28th and then obviously a longer
  221. 8:39term of duty uh as the the the senior
  222. 8:43nrc official on site uh maybe you know
  223. 8:46talk about both of those uh you know
  224. 8:49what did you do immediately after and
  225. 8:51then and then you know we can we can get
  226. 8:54into that longer um you know that longer
  227. 8:57tenure during the cleanup
  228. 8:59okay well initially when we were the
  229. 9:01first days uh i was in bethesda uh for
  230. 9:04the first week uh and and that evolved
  231. 9:07into the chaotic times of the lack of
  232. 9:10communication from the control room uh
  233. 9:13information kind of slowly drifted into
  234. 9:16us uh it was you know
  235. 9:18early thursday we started to realize
  236. 9:21that there was significant core damage
  237. 9:23was confirmed when the sample was taken
  238. 9:26um you know it was very highly
  239. 9:27radioactive
  240. 9:28we so we knew there was severe core
  241. 9:30damage nothing we didn't know for sure
  242. 9:32yet but it didn't really matter because
  243. 9:34we knew the core had probably collapsed
  244. 9:36and we also learned about the pressure
  245. 9:39excursion the burn inside the
  246. 9:40containment building so we knew we had a
  247. 9:42severe situation
  248. 9:44and we started getting into mitigation
  249. 9:46efforts to support
  250. 9:48how to mitigate this and also to try to
  251. 9:50improve the communications but it was
  252. 9:52very difficult to extract information
  253. 9:55out of the out of the site because we
  254. 9:57didn't know they didn't know themselves
  255. 10:00i don't believe there was any
  256. 10:01intentional withholding of the
  257. 10:03information by any of the people who
  258. 10:05were there
  259. 10:06there were nrc people in the control
  260. 10:07room along with the gpu med ed people at
  261. 10:10the time uh so but we were gathering the
  262. 10:13information uh then there was known as
  263. 10:15black friday uh when we had the you know
  264. 10:18evacuation situation um we were looking
  265. 10:20at the situation of of degassing the
  266. 10:24primary coolant system which was heavy
  267. 10:26in hydrogen um and uh
  268. 10:28we were filling the um through the waste
  269. 10:32gas compressors the tanks and we did
  270. 10:34some advanced calculations about
  271. 10:36potentially um you know how significant
  272. 10:38that might be from a public health and
  273. 10:40safety point of view
  274. 10:42we've done some quick calculations based
  275. 10:44on the first sampling and we thought if
  276. 10:46if the relief valves had lifted in those
  277. 10:48in those tanks that would be about a
  278. 10:501200 mr per hour at the site boundary um
  279. 10:54i was in the process of briefing the
  280. 10:56executive committee and harold denton
  281. 10:58dixtello
  282. 11:01at that time friday morning and then a
  283. 11:04report came in from the from the site
  284. 11:06that there was 1200 milligram per hour
  285. 11:09reading now it was
  286. 11:10assumed by us erroneously
  287. 11:13that that was a site boundary reading
  288. 11:14where it was a helicopter hovering over
  289. 11:16the exhaust vent um but that kicked in a
  290. 11:20a dialogue by the senior folks there
  291. 11:23about what should be done and there was
  292. 11:24just so much frustration due to the lack
  293. 11:26of you know information um that we had
  294. 11:30from the site so uh
  295. 11:32ended up with the governor having a
  296. 11:34precautionary evacuation
  297. 11:36basically due to the uncertainty that we
  298. 11:38had but reality was
  299. 11:40on wednesday night when the main coolant
  300. 11:42pump was was restarted the plant was
  301. 11:45thermodynamically stable you know at
  302. 11:47that point but we were degassing uh down
  303. 11:50through the letdown system and there was
  304. 11:52iodine in the
  305. 11:54air in the auxiliary building very high
  306. 11:56radiation levels due to the you know the
  307. 11:58fission products that were in the let
  308. 12:00down primary cooling system um so that
  309. 12:02that continued on uh that week uh and
  310. 12:06then we sort of had a shift turnover and
  311. 12:07then i went
  312. 12:09the following week i was to relieve the
  313. 12:11first set of nrc people with harold
  314. 12:13denton at the site so i spent three
  315. 12:15weeks at the site basically mitigating
  316. 12:17iodine that was being released from the
  317. 12:20um
  318. 12:21auxiliary building very low levels but
  319. 12:23nonetheless measures you know we could
  320. 12:24measure it um so it was changing the
  321. 12:27charcoal and
  322. 12:28in the filters and that sort of thing is
  323. 12:30what we were doing and ben rushi um
  324. 12:34was was my boss there uh you know at
  325. 12:36that at that time
  326. 12:39so uh and just just really quickly so
  327. 12:41you were measuring 1200 milligram and
  328. 12:43that that does get referenced in the
  329. 12:45series but that was from the exhaust
  330. 12:47stack that was ins that was not at the
  331. 12:49boundary that was in the plant itself so
  332. 12:52so
  333. 12:53you can reasonably assume that those
  334. 12:55read you know the the elevated readings
  335. 12:57that occurred
  336. 12:59around the plant kind of came from that
  337. 13:01concentrated source
  338. 13:03basically it was the exhaust valley
  339. 13:06out of the stack at that point but they
  340. 13:08were relatively low um that was a spike
  341. 13:10of noble gases that was a noble gas
  342. 13:14xenon 133 primarily at that time
  343. 13:17which has very low biological
  344. 13:19significance and decays away very
  345. 13:21rapidly so although the gamma level was
  346. 13:23fairly high but it was a local right
  347. 13:25over it was not at the site boundary the
  348. 13:27site the maximum site boundary doses you
  349. 13:29know for the entire period if people had
  350. 13:31even stayed there which they didn't
  351. 13:33there wasn't anybody there uh would have
  352. 13:35been you know nominally 100 milligram
  353. 13:37total if they'd stayed there the entire
  354. 13:39week which that was not the case and we
  355. 13:41have tld systems all around um the the
  356. 13:45site that we we can back calculate what
  357. 13:47those were um so we we had that data and
  358. 13:50that's in the ans uh wire uh article
  359. 13:54that
  360. 13:55published
  361. 13:56so 100 milligram just just for just for
  362. 13:59comparison would be
  363. 14:00the additional radiation you might get
  364. 14:03in certain high altitude parts of living
  365. 14:05in certain high altitude parts of
  366. 14:07colorado for a year um or
  367. 14:09actually 85 milligram working or living
  368. 14:12in the us capital for a year because of
  369. 14:14the radioactive uh
  370. 14:16uh
  371. 14:17marble
  372. 14:18so uh so
  373. 14:20your your second tour of duty you're
  374. 14:22there you're the you know essentially
  375. 14:25the lead nrc official in charge of the
  376. 14:27cleanup this is you know after the
  377. 14:29site's been been stabilized and and
  378. 14:32so i want to go into a little bit about
  379. 14:36the balance that you had to strike
  380. 14:39to on the one hand be
  381. 14:41expeditious and getting the site cleaned
  382. 14:44up but also being deliberate about the
  383. 14:47actions that you took to ensure there
  384. 14:49weren't any unintended consequences of
  385. 14:52it can you talk a little bit about that
  386. 14:54you know that balance and how you
  387. 14:56maintain that balance
  388. 14:58uh yes um in
  389. 15:00the fall of 80 but a year later is when
  390. 15:03i was asked to go and be the site
  391. 15:05director by harold denton and and john
  392. 15:07hearn who was the chairman of the nrc at
  393. 15:09that time uh so i went there and the job
  394. 15:12was to be sure the public health and
  395. 15:14safety is protected and to get the
  396. 15:16cleanup done as quickly as we safely can
  397. 15:19do
  398. 15:20because there was an unknown risk of
  399. 15:22what the core conditions were we didn't
  400. 15:24know we know it's severely damaged
  401. 15:26but we didn't know if it was melted or
  402. 15:28not we didn't know how the reactor
  403. 15:29vessel was on the base so there was many
  404. 15:31uncertainties and we wanted to get it
  405. 15:34into an engineered design condition as
  406. 15:37opposed to an undesigned condition that
  407. 15:39we were in so timeliness had a risk
  408. 15:42factor to it as well but safety was
  409. 15:44first and uh to reduce the the the
  410. 15:47uncertainty risk uh was the second part
  411. 15:51of it so this was a balance that we had
  412. 15:54um to do and as i said
  413. 15:56everybody in america pitched together to
  414. 15:58solve this problem now the situation
  415. 16:01when i arrived there was was very
  416. 16:03difficult for everyone
  417. 16:05america we had no one had ever estab uh
  418. 16:08you know faced the situation of you know
  419. 16:11a severely damaged core it comes out
  420. 16:13partially melted core um high very high
  421. 16:16radiation readings throughout the plant
  422. 16:19uh we had you know many r per hour you
  423. 16:22know inside the containment building and
  424. 16:24some places the auxiliary building um we
  425. 16:27had
  426. 16:28three meters nine feet of water in the
  427. 16:30containment building highly radioactive
  428. 16:32cesium strontium this had to be dealt
  429. 16:34with we'd never dealt with that type of
  430. 16:36thing before in america now to to to
  431. 16:39deal with this
  432. 16:40a whole team had to be created under
  433. 16:42under basically gpu nuclear took over
  434. 16:45from metropolitan edison who was you
  435. 16:47know the original owner of it and we had
  436. 16:50to put together basically four different
  437. 16:51cultures into a team and some of this
  438. 16:54resulted in some of the procedural
  439. 16:56issues we're going to talk about in a
  440. 16:58moment but basically to to be successful
  441. 17:01with the challenge of the cleanup of
  442. 17:04severely damaged reactor like this first
  443. 17:06you had to have the utility owner that
  444. 17:08was gpu nuclear
  445. 17:10they owned it they had the operators who
  446. 17:12knew the plant were there we had to
  447. 17:14bring in new technologies past what
  448. 17:17operating reactor people do because the
  449. 17:19cesium and strontium was out of the fuel
  450. 17:21it was in the water it was in the air in
  451. 17:23places so we had to bring in
  452. 17:25technologies from the doe nuclear
  453. 17:27laboratory systems who had dealt with
  454. 17:29that and reprocessing in the defense
  455. 17:31industry so the hanford the oak ridge
  456. 17:33savannah river technologies needed to be
  457. 17:36brought in we needed to bring in
  458. 17:38substantial engineering and construction
  459. 17:40refurbishment work like to rebuild the
  460. 17:42polar crane so gpu
  461. 17:45hired bechtel national to be part of
  462. 17:47that team their preeminent you know
  463. 17:49architect engineering company so they
  464. 17:51were part of the team and we had a new
  465. 17:53management structure brought in uh which
  466. 17:56basically was the naval nuclear
  467. 17:58management safety culture conduct of
  468. 18:01operations
  469. 18:02manager so we had a lot of that
  470. 18:04management culture infused now putting
  471. 18:07these four different cultures together
  472. 18:10into an effective team was a managerial
  473. 18:14challenge and communications and
  474. 18:15understanding and learning uh what was a
  475. 18:18major was a major part of it but this
  476. 18:21was the situation we had uh moving
  477. 18:24forward to do
  478. 18:25very complex
  479. 18:26um tasks for example we had to build a
  480. 18:29whole new system to process the nine
  481. 18:31feet of water in the basement to to
  482. 18:33reduce the gamma radiation levels the
  483. 18:35polar crane which was on the top of the
  484. 18:38reactor building had to be refurbished
  485. 18:40because we had to remove the 40-ton
  486. 18:43missile shields
  487. 18:44to eventually remove the head and the
  488. 18:46inner plenum to get access down into the
  489. 18:49damaged fuel uh we we had to do the what
  490. 18:53was the quick look was to get data on
  491. 18:55what was inside so we could decide was
  492. 18:58this was this going to have to be
  493. 18:59totally robotics or could we put humans
  494. 19:01in there uh so we did a lot of
  495. 19:03decontamination the quick look where we
  496. 19:06then discovered that the top you know
  497. 19:08five feet of the core had collapsed down
  498. 19:10underneath um so we we learned all of
  499. 19:13these things to to move forward and and
  500. 19:16part of this was the the the the tmi
  501. 19:20team i will say which is gpu because
  502. 19:22needed to work to refurbish the polar
  503. 19:24crane uh and that was uh one of the
  504. 19:27example of one of the
  505. 19:29major tasks we had to do besides water
  506. 19:31and all the other tasks we had
  507. 19:34so uh
  508. 19:36so complicated relationship between the
  509. 19:38partners but
  510. 19:40um a a defined uh a defined set of
  511. 19:43objectives now in the show
  512. 19:46there's discussion about
  513. 19:48um the pressure to move to move fast um
  514. 19:52did you feel that pressure
  515. 19:55no i mean
  516. 19:57expediency prompt safe cleanup was
  517. 19:59important so prompt yes that was
  518. 20:02important because we wanted to get the
  519. 20:03core out okay we wanted to get it into
  520. 20:06engineer design configuration not an
  521. 20:08unknown configuration sitting in the
  522. 20:10bottom we wanted to get the cesium and
  523. 20:12strontium that was in the water uh and
  524. 20:15air and other waste we wanted to get
  525. 20:16those into a designed for waste
  526. 20:18management controlled system in place so
  527. 20:21we we constantly were working on these
  528. 20:24with the integrated cleanup team and
  529. 20:26what was done gpu put together the
  530. 20:29bechtel people in with the gpu people
  531. 20:32and they had a unified tmi2 procedural
  532. 20:35system
  533. 20:36where they basically adapted the best
  534. 20:39procedures from each of these
  535. 20:41organizations to do specific tasks
  536. 20:44and this is where the differences of
  537. 20:46opinion
  538. 20:47amongst individuals is to which
  539. 20:49procedures you should use for what tasks
  540. 20:54in the case of the poll ukraine evolved
  541. 20:59from this procedural differences of
  542. 21:01opinion
  543. 21:02and
  544. 21:04as it related to the polar crane
  545. 21:06there were
  546. 21:08this was considered by gpu to be a major
  547. 21:10refurbishment now the polar crane was a
  548. 21:13major construction refurbishment job
  549. 21:16uh all the wiring had to be replaced
  550. 21:18because it was all damaged by by the
  551. 21:20heat and radiation
  552. 21:22the brakes had to be replaced structural
  553. 21:25integrity had to be checked very
  554. 21:27carefully i was a 500 ton capacity crane
  555. 21:30um and it was needed to remove first the
  556. 21:3340 ton
  557. 21:35missile shields which there were four of
  558. 21:36them over the reactor head uh and then
  559. 21:39uh needed to be tested and then to then
  560. 21:42to lift the
  561. 21:43ton head itself the head assembly had to
  562. 21:46be taken off and then the smaller plenum
  563. 21:49had to be pulled out to get access to
  564. 21:51the core so we knew this had to be done
  565. 21:54uh and given that this was a lot of
  566. 21:57vector work to do the refurbishment
  567. 22:00they chose a procedure known as a work
  568. 22:02package
  569. 22:03okay and a lot of the differences of
  570. 22:05opinion between mr parks and bechtel and
  571. 22:08gpu
  572. 22:09had to do with which type of procedure
  573. 22:12was to be used
  574. 22:14the
  575. 22:15work packages that construction
  576. 22:17companies normally did could adapt all
  577. 22:20the quality assurance requirements
  578. 22:23but the focus was primarily from a
  579. 22:24construction work type of thing
  580. 22:27the utility people who were
  581. 22:29used they were used to not doing a lot
  582. 22:31of heavy construction but construction
  583. 22:32mods at a plant used engineering chain
  584. 22:35notice known as type procedures and they
  585. 22:37were somewhat different but both of them
  586. 22:39will achieve the nuclear quality
  587. 22:41assurance requirements of the nuclear
  588. 22:43regulatory commission and we had we
  589. 22:46checked that over and we checked the
  590. 22:48safety of it
  591. 22:49i had as the director i had
  592. 22:51responsibility to sign off on every
  593. 22:54gpu operating procedure involving
  594. 22:56substantial amounts of radioactivity i
  595. 22:59signed about a thousand procedures a
  596. 23:00year and i had a staff of 18 to 20
  597. 23:03people and we reviewed them and we
  598. 23:05worked closely knowing technically what
  599. 23:07was going on at the plant
  600. 23:09now we knew that we were moving in the
  601. 23:11let me say the the
  602. 23:13february of 1983 moving toward the polar
  603. 23:17crane
  604. 23:18we were we at nrc knew that gpu was
  605. 23:22using the bechtel um work package type
  606. 23:26procedures which was okay with us
  607. 23:28because it met the uh engineering
  608. 23:30quality assurance requirements if they
  609. 23:32had chosen to use the ecn type that
  610. 23:34would have been okay too okay but we it
  611. 23:37was an administrative issue
  612. 23:39mr can i can i can i stop you there for
  613. 23:42a second like because i want to just i
  614. 23:44want to make sure
  615. 23:46i understand this because it is it is a
  616. 23:48significant part of the show so so what
  617. 23:51you're suggesting is that what the
  618. 23:54netflix show presents as as sort of a
  619. 23:56major safety risk
  620. 23:58was
  621. 23:59actually a disagreement over what the
  622. 24:02the flavor of paperwork that would be
  623. 24:04required to document the improvements
  624. 24:06needed to to um get the polar crane
  625. 24:10running and and get the missile shields
  626. 24:12and the reactor head off is that
  627. 24:14a fair way of describing it
  628. 24:16yes yes it was
  629. 24:19it was it was an issue of the procedural
  630. 24:21paperwork
  631. 24:22um when uh
  632. 24:24mr parks didn't like the way that it was
  633. 24:27being done he wanted to use the ecn type
  634. 24:30approach
  635. 24:31and he basically came to us at the nrc
  636. 24:34confidentially and we recognized his
  637. 24:36confidentiality saying that gpu was
  638. 24:38doing this the wrong way and we said
  639. 24:41well
  640. 24:41tell us what from a safety point of view
  641. 24:43is wrong
  642. 24:44and he couldn't say that other than i
  643. 24:46don't like their procedure
  644. 24:48uh and he says i'm not sure that they
  645. 24:49did calculations like they should
  646. 24:52so i think it was february 18 1983 he
  647. 24:55came to me okay and i said we will look
  648. 24:59into this uh and and see
  649. 25:01you know the merits of of the case um we
  650. 25:04looked that we did a surprise inspection
  651. 25:06that week at bechtel gaithersburg office
  652. 25:08uh and the calculations were there and
  653. 25:10they were following the procedures uh
  654. 25:12the following friday i had a meeting
  655. 25:14with him and and we told him again we
  656. 25:17didn't see anything from a safety point
  657. 25:19of view wrong okay
  658. 25:21is there any safety issue that you have
  659. 25:23that you think is not being corrected
  660. 25:25besides the administrative procedure
  661. 25:27they're using and there was he said no
  662. 25:30and if you look in the uh
  663. 25:327 57 page affidavit that he filed with
  664. 25:35the nrc uh later objecting to my
  665. 25:39decision
  666. 25:41there was no safety issue other than the
  667. 25:43procedural one so it was it was
  668. 25:45administrative uh there was always in
  669. 25:48the show there was this thing about it
  670. 25:50upcoming lift uh there was nothing
  671. 25:52scheduled uh for the next two months
  672. 25:55i had not gotten the procedures yet for
  673. 25:57operations um when we first procedures
  674. 26:00came to me
  675. 26:02on march 10th i think it was i i
  676. 26:04disapproved them because they had not
  677. 26:07done the
  678. 26:08proper rigging for uh certifications for
  679. 26:12the for the slings for the for the lift
  680. 26:15um
  681. 26:16but uh and then and then after that mr
  682. 26:19parks uh complained to my superiors i
  683. 26:21told him he had the right to do it if
  684. 26:22you didn't agree with me he could go to
  685. 26:24the commission and he did
  686. 26:26and the commission asked for a a
  687. 26:28investigation of it which is fine and
  688. 26:31they did and then it became more of a
  689. 26:33public
  690. 26:34public issue
  691. 26:36so with that uh difference of opinion on
  692. 26:39the procedures um we know we we moved
  693. 26:42forward um there was testing there was
  694. 26:44always going to be testing of the crane
  695. 26:46uh the show had an impression that there
  696. 26:48was a commission meeting and a
  697. 26:50last-minute thing there was no such
  698. 26:52commission meeting that day that's
  699. 26:53totally fictitious uh what they have uh
  700. 26:56in the show but it makes good television
  701. 26:58i guess um and um you know
  702. 27:02one of the things i know i had a meeting
  703. 27:03with governor thornberg he asked what is
  704. 27:05all this about i explained to him what
  705. 27:06it was
  706. 27:08and i said we're going to be doubly sure
  707. 27:09any lifts in that containment will be
  708. 27:11done safely
  709. 27:12and i said that i personally would be in
  710. 27:14there on the first heavy lift
  711. 27:16so the reviews were done the gpu made
  712. 27:19the necessary you know improvements that
  713. 27:21we'd you know requested to do um and the
  714. 27:25crane went forward and and did
  715. 27:26successful lifts um you know later so i
  716. 27:29think it's february of 84 that was was
  717. 27:31the time um you know where's the lift i
  718. 27:34think dan has a picture uh yeah dan dan
  719. 27:37put up the picture uh of lake because
  720. 27:40again you committed to the governor that
  721. 27:41you were gonna be there at the time
  722. 27:43right so you you suited up and went in
  723. 27:45yeah that was me getting ready to go in
  724. 27:47if you notice i have a camera there i
  725. 27:48was for a lot of reasons you're just not
  726. 27:50going to stand in there and watch so i
  727. 27:52was the photographer um you know for the
  728. 27:54for the lifting of the first heavy lifts
  729. 27:57and the next picture uh i think was the
  730. 28:00lifting of the go back one there we go
  731. 28:03that was the first heavy lift this is
  732. 28:05the 40 ton
  733. 28:06missile shield that was lifted we took
  734. 28:08the 440 ton uh
  735. 28:11reactor head shields which you see one
  736. 28:13here
  737. 28:14with the pressurizer shield to give a
  738. 28:17test rig to actually do a 170 ton test
  739. 28:20lift
  740. 28:21to test and prove that the crane uh
  741. 28:24would be capable of lifting the uh
  742. 28:27the head
  743. 28:28the show has a whole lot of comments
  744. 28:30about how an accident would have caused
  745. 28:33a disaster in central pennsylvania
  746. 28:36supercriticality
  747. 28:38melting of the core
  748. 28:39none of that is technically feasible
  749. 28:42the decay heat of the core at the time
  750. 28:44uh in 1983 was 24 kilowatts that's about
  751. 28:48uh 18 to 20 home hair dryers uh not
  752. 28:51enough heat that was going to to melt
  753. 28:53anything at all but um you know none of
  754. 28:56that was none of that was mentioned
  755. 28:58well and let me just i do want to go to
  756. 29:00one thing here and dan i think you can
  757. 29:02take the you can you can take the screen
  758. 29:05share off so
  759. 29:06so like i want to i want to zero in on
  760. 29:08that point so
  761. 29:10at the time at which you were doing the
  762. 29:13the reactor head lift
  763. 29:16the the energy in the core was you know
  764. 29:18let's call it 18 let's call it 18 hair
  765. 29:21dryers um
  766. 29:24did richard did richard parks know that
  767. 29:26when when he made that when he made his
  768. 29:28claims could he have known that
  769. 29:31he he should have known it i mean he
  770. 29:32wasn't a degreed engineer but he had
  771. 29:34been a nuclear trained you know operator
  772. 29:36so i mean uh
  773. 29:39in my discussions that i had with him
  774. 29:41now this is my memory from 40 years ago
  775. 29:44uh and in all the documentation at the
  776. 29:46time he never brought up a specific uh
  777. 29:49issue other than the procedures weren't
  778. 29:51being done as he thought they ought to
  779. 29:53be done so i don't know honestly what he
  780. 29:56did or didn't know we never had a
  781. 29:58technical discussion when i asked him
  782. 30:00what is your safety concern other than
  783. 30:03procedures
  784. 30:04um there wasn't any at that time so what
  785. 30:07he had in the show was what he had in
  786. 30:09the show
  787. 30:10right so but again i think that the you
  788. 30:13know the show kind of
  789. 30:16lays out the scenario where the head
  790. 30:18drops and it damages the fuel and and
  791. 30:20you know east coast the east coast is is
  792. 30:23you know is um
  793. 30:26at least some part of it is rendered
  794. 30:28uninhabitable at least that's you know
  795. 30:30the suggestion of it
  796. 30:31so you know
  797. 30:33moving on a little bit now to the um
  798. 30:36the restart of operations for unit one
  799. 30:40um you know this the show i think
  800. 30:42touches on it a bit but um
  801. 30:45you know obviously there there were
  802. 30:48you know there was some controversy
  803. 30:49around that locally
  804. 30:51um
  805. 30:52but
  806. 30:52was there you know was there anything in
  807. 30:54the decision to restart unit one that
  808. 30:57that that gave you pause at the time or
  809. 30:59gives you pause now how do you how do
  810. 31:02you view that that
  811. 31:03that decision
  812. 31:05well
  813. 31:06the the three-mile accident you know in
  814. 31:0879 and 80
  815. 31:10everybody did uh the reassessment and
  816. 31:12and the whole industry changed because
  817. 31:14we realized that we had a this was a
  818. 31:16serious thing and we could not continue
  819. 31:18like we were
  820. 31:19as an industry and as a government we
  821. 31:21were complacent and all kinds of things
  822. 31:23we learned so
  823. 31:25mass change came across the whole
  824. 31:27country um and so
  825. 31:30gpu the owner of tmi tmi1 and tmi2 split
  826. 31:35the organizations into unit 1 restart
  827. 31:38and unit 2 unit 2 cleanup and they
  828. 31:40brought in all new people all new
  829. 31:42managers and the unit 1 was was the
  830. 31:45restart was totally changed so it was
  831. 31:47all new managers navy nuclear you know
  832. 31:49captains and admirals were brought in uh
  833. 31:52all the operators were retrained new
  834. 31:54operators are brought in it was a
  835. 31:55totally different corporation the name
  836. 31:57had changed the old metropolitan edison
  837. 31:59was gone i mean all the people who were
  838. 32:02who were really there before were pretty
  839. 32:03much gone uh certainly all the
  840. 32:05leadership was so the nrc went through
  841. 32:08basically a six-year process of of
  842. 32:10recertifying their operations uh you
  843. 32:14know would be safe training was checked
  844. 32:16and rechecked uh and all the lessons
  845. 32:18learned impo
  846. 32:20admiral rickover was asked to do a
  847. 32:22special review adam rickover was getting
  848. 32:24old at the time but adam rickov was
  849. 32:26still very very knowledgeable but he had
  850. 32:28his he had his own group of navy
  851. 32:30captains which were highly trained who
  852. 32:32went through the gpu plans uh with a
  853. 32:35fine-tooth comb as did the nrc so it was
  854. 32:38a totally different corporation uh
  855. 32:40totally different people totally
  856. 32:42different lessons learned and i think
  857. 32:44the proof of it is it was restarted it
  858. 32:46went on and operated very successfully
  859. 32:48for 32 years until 2019 when it went
  860. 32:52down due to economics
  861. 32:54of cheap natural gas maybe now people in
  862. 32:56pennsylvania might want to wish a little
  863. 32:58differently but nonetheless that's
  864. 32:59that's kind of what happened um but it
  865. 33:01worked very the plant worked very well
  866. 33:04but the accident in 1979 traumatized the
  867. 33:08people of central pennsylvania i mean
  868. 33:10that was the true
  869. 33:12sadness of what we the nuclear
  870. 33:15establishment did to the people now you
  871. 33:18may have excuses it wasn't our fault and
  872. 33:20you know but but it was we it happened
  873. 33:23uh so
  874. 33:24when tmi1
  875. 33:26wanted to be restarted in the early 80s
  876. 33:28there was a lot of people in central
  877. 33:30pennsylvania said never again i mean we
  878. 33:32were traumatized before we were
  879. 33:34threatened our children were threatened
  880. 33:36threatened
  881. 33:37and a lot of people were very vehement
  882. 33:39about it against it there were also
  883. 33:41people who were very supportive of it i
  884. 33:43think after it was running
  885. 33:45i think people calmed down most did a
  886. 33:47few people were still highly impacted by
  887. 33:50this as you could see from the show and
  888. 33:53still are
  889. 33:54they they
  890. 33:57were true victims of what the industry
  891. 34:00did to them and the press did to them
  892. 34:02and and in my view
  893. 34:04shows like the netflix are still doing
  894. 34:06to people okay of scaring scaring them i
  895. 34:09think inappropriately
  896. 34:11well so i was i was a i was a teenager
  897. 34:14at the time living i don't know maybe 90
  898. 34:16you know 90 to 100 miles south i can i
  899. 34:19can remember the eerie feeling in the
  900. 34:21days that followed and i think one of
  901. 34:23the the
  902. 34:24one of the things that one of the
  903. 34:26services that the show actually does
  904. 34:29is
  905. 34:30you know they go back through this rich
  906. 34:32detailed archival footage and they pull
  907. 34:34up the press conferences and you realize
  908. 34:36how colossal the communications failure
  909. 34:39was in the first few days i mean anybody
  910. 34:41who would you know you can't blame
  911. 34:43anybody for being worried about it
  912. 34:44because it just seemed as though
  913. 34:47uh you know nobody was in charge i mean
  914. 34:49is that you know
  915. 34:51did did you feel that eerie you know did
  916. 34:53you feel that eeriness too i mean what
  917. 34:55you know how did you perceive it
  918. 34:58you're perceiving it from an engineering
  919. 35:00standpoint but you know when you were
  920. 35:02there on site how did you you know
  921. 35:05give me some examples of of how you
  922. 35:07could sort of viscerally feel that your
  923. 35:09family was there right
  924. 35:11yeah i mean
  925. 35:12we moved there i mean originally when i
  926. 35:14was asked to go up there you know in
  927. 35:161980 they said well you can you can
  928. 35:18still live in maryland rather than
  929. 35:20suburban maryland outside of washington
  930. 35:22and and i said no i said if i could take
  931. 35:24this job i have to live there in the
  932. 35:26community i have to have a house my
  933. 35:28children my two young children then
  934. 35:30needed to go to local school and i
  935. 35:32needed to see the cooling towers from my
  936. 35:34house and they said well you could go do
  937. 35:36it so i did and i lived there and my
  938. 35:39wife was a childbirth
  939. 35:41nurse at the harrisburg hospital and and
  940. 35:43so i'm you know we were members in our
  941. 35:45church and knew all about uh how the
  942. 35:48people felt and they were truly all good
  943. 35:51people including the people who were on
  944. 35:53that on that netflix show the ladies who
  945. 35:55i knew quite well um you know these were
  946. 35:57all really good people but they were
  947. 36:01impacted severely psychologically by
  948. 36:04what
  949. 36:05the industry did to them uh so it was
  950. 36:08real
  951. 36:08and uh you know i
  952. 36:11and they would ask a lot of questions
  953. 36:13well if you lived here would you have
  954. 36:14left and i said if all the only news i
  955. 36:16had was what i was getting uh on the on
  956. 36:19the television i probably would have
  957. 36:20told my wife and kids to go uh you know
  958. 36:23but reality there's just two the reality
  959. 36:25people act like they believe and what
  960. 36:28you perceive and and when you get
  961. 36:30information that says
  962. 36:31it it's it's it's significant you react
  963. 36:34that way uh so uh it doesn't matter what
  964. 36:36reality is or isn't it's what you
  965. 36:38believe it is and and we
  966. 36:40that trauma was was significant uh what
  967. 36:44we did to the people of central
  968. 36:45pennsylvania and never again and i don't
  969. 36:48think it ever will be again because we
  970. 36:50changed so much in the in the ability to
  971. 36:53not only do a better technical job to
  972. 36:55vent any event like this but also if
  973. 36:58events happen how we communicate uh
  974. 37:01accurate information gets to the press
  975. 37:03um at the time
  976. 37:05you know the the press touchstone was
  977. 37:08the jane fonda china syndrome movie i
  978. 37:10mean that's what they could understand
  979. 37:12and that was the reference case that
  980. 37:14people used
  981. 37:15and people
  982. 37:16words like the word meltdown uh is a
  983. 37:19very difficult word for for me i would
  984. 37:21say as an engineer because what is that
  985. 37:23is that you know molten core going to
  986. 37:26china and and the area is devastated uh
  987. 37:28for 100 miles or is it what happened to
  988. 37:31tmi yes some fuel melted in it and it
  989. 37:34flowed inside you know inside the vessel
  990. 37:36here or there
  991. 37:37but not the consequences uh minimal
  992. 37:40minimal consequences from a biological
  993. 37:43radiological point of view now that the
  994. 37:46plant was ruined of course it's a
  995. 37:47billion dollar plant was destroyed so it
  996. 37:50was certainly a huge industrial accident
  997. 37:52but from a public health and safety
  998. 37:54point of view it was fairly minor
  999. 37:58and didn't really i mean ultimately
  1000. 38:02i feel like the netflix show runners
  1001. 38:05kind of buried the lead of the story
  1002. 38:07right there's been so much advancement
  1003. 38:09in nuclear safety since three mile
  1004. 38:11island and because of three mile island
  1005. 38:13and and obviously they were going for
  1006. 38:16sort of a certain dramatic narrative
  1007. 38:18here but you know do you think they
  1008. 38:19missed an opportunity to set the record
  1009. 38:21straight on the safety improvements
  1010. 38:24oh absolutely i mean there there's so
  1011. 38:26much that that the industry did and the
  1012. 38:28government did as well uh post three
  1013. 38:31mile island i mean it was actually it
  1014. 38:33was a huge wake-up call for us all i
  1015. 38:35mean we as overall we as a nation we
  1016. 38:38were complacent about it those operators
  1017. 38:40you know we're not appropriately trained
  1018. 38:43to operate a bmw reactor but they were
  1019. 38:46good people they were good operators uh
  1020. 38:48but they were they were lost that day
  1021. 38:50okay i mean when they were turning off
  1022. 38:52the the uh safety injection pumps that
  1023. 38:55our 1975 computer was turning on okay
  1024. 38:59they turned it off i mean we never
  1025. 39:02expected an operator to be a problem we
  1026. 39:05always thought whatever uh happened in a
  1027. 39:07reactor and of a design point of view
  1028. 39:09the operators would be there to help you
  1029. 39:11and to assist you uh in the situation
  1030. 39:13your your engineering uh automation etc
  1031. 39:16we never thought that they would
  1032. 39:18actually turn pumps off because they
  1033. 39:20misunderstood um you know the
  1034. 39:22instruments that they they were seeing
  1035. 39:24in their training so we learned all of
  1036. 39:26this
  1037. 39:28and you know the
  1038. 39:29key thing i think was the adoption of
  1039. 39:32the naval nuclear management culture uh
  1040. 39:35the institute uh nuclear power
  1041. 39:38operations you know you the industry uh
  1042. 39:41uh you know they're harder on themselves
  1043. 39:43than the nrc should be and that's a good
  1044. 39:45thing so we the communications if
  1045. 39:48something goes wrong a whole reporting
  1046. 39:50system even very minor items unusual
  1047. 39:53events are now reported there's
  1048. 39:55communications between the state level
  1049. 39:58and the local level and and the utility
  1050. 40:00sites themselves so so much has changed
  1051. 40:04that we learned and i think
  1052. 40:06i was an early thing that was good for
  1053. 40:09america okay in that uh the backup
  1054. 40:12systems did work the containment work uh
  1055. 40:15there was no um you know appreciable you
  1056. 40:18know impact radiologically speaking on
  1057. 40:21on the community
  1058. 40:22economically speaking and the investment
  1059. 40:24side it was pretty severe i mean
  1060. 40:27metropolitan edison gpu nuclear they no
  1061. 40:30longer exist those companies no longer
  1062. 40:32exist uh through this whole thing so we
  1063. 40:34learned a lot and we made america
  1064. 40:36stronger we made us more protective
  1065. 40:39productive and we made us safer so i
  1066. 40:42think we learned our lessons uh and we
  1067. 40:45moved on and i think the last you know
  1068. 40:4740 years has shown
  1069. 40:49the value and i'm hoping the next 40
  1070. 40:51years will even be better
  1071. 40:54so i'm going to kind of dip into the
  1072. 40:56into the q a here because the questions
  1073. 40:58of uh the questions have come in and
  1074. 41:01there's one related to this part of the
  1075. 41:02conversation so
  1076. 41:04uh it goes like this i watch the
  1077. 41:06miniseries how could how would the tmi
  1078. 41:09accident
  1079. 41:10be handled if it happened in 2022 how
  1080. 41:13would you handle it from the nrc side if
  1081. 41:16you were in charge of the event again or
  1082. 41:18how you know what what procedures do any
  1083. 41:20nrc have in place that weren't in place
  1084. 41:22then maybe you can give us some of the
  1085. 41:24just uh you know
  1086. 41:27a contrast of what that would be like
  1087. 41:30yeah i mean in the post tmi you know
  1088. 41:32lessons learned both the industry and
  1089. 41:34and the nrc uh communications and safety
  1090. 41:38data are are key things we all we had
  1091. 41:41was a phone line okay to the control
  1092. 41:43room and would ask questions and you
  1093. 41:45would never you know the people were
  1094. 41:47busy trying to figure out what was going
  1095. 41:49on so you could not get any information
  1096. 41:52there was a whole data center the nrc
  1097. 41:54changed its um you know incident
  1098. 41:57response center completely to not just
  1099. 41:59depending on a phone line or two
  1100. 42:01they'd get actually data of safety
  1101. 42:03parameters you'd get temperatures and
  1102. 42:05pressures um
  1103. 42:06all of that data that we just didn't
  1104. 42:08have at that at that time so so the
  1105. 42:11information flow is is tremendously
  1106. 42:13different the operator training is
  1107. 42:16completely different i mean there were
  1108. 42:17very few simulators then as far as the
  1109. 42:20training
  1110. 42:21of the operators and the fundamentals of
  1111. 42:24of understanding you know superheat
  1112. 42:26steam and and things that were
  1113. 42:29fundamental that the operators really
  1114. 42:31didn't understand thermal response uh
  1115. 42:33transients so it
  1116. 42:36we're probably never going to get to
  1117. 42:37there okay but if we did if we had some
  1118. 42:40of it uh we have the data and the flow
  1119. 42:43and their exercise their training and
  1120. 42:46and doing doing uh
  1121. 42:48responses and drills
  1122. 42:50we're in a much better situation to be
  1123. 42:52able to communicate externally
  1124. 42:54the utility met ed at the time i had no
  1125. 42:57ability to go into a press conference on
  1126. 43:00what was happening the press people were
  1127. 43:03monitoring the radio communications from
  1128. 43:06the gpu
  1129. 43:08monitors who were out taking samples so
  1130. 43:10they would have real-time data as to
  1131. 43:13what a radiation level might be whereas
  1132. 43:15the
  1133. 43:16jack irvine who was the vice president
  1134. 43:18would go into a press conference he was
  1135. 43:20maybe a half hour out of date but they
  1136. 43:22would have it within a minute and they
  1137. 43:23would say we just had a report the level
  1138. 43:25went up or the level went down the level
  1139. 43:27went sideways he couldn't respond
  1140. 43:30because he didn't know and if he said
  1141. 43:32something he was then quote lying so
  1142. 43:34even though he was more right then he
  1143. 43:37was wrong
  1144. 43:38his credibility was zero okay
  1145. 43:41uh and uh things like we did in nrc on
  1146. 43:45the hydrogen bubble uh situation which
  1147. 43:48happened you know later on um you know
  1148. 43:51chairman henry would ask a what if
  1149. 43:53question well what if the the hydrogen
  1150. 43:56was explosive right
  1151. 43:57a simple question but it got out of
  1152. 44:00control and said well nrc is doing
  1153. 44:03analyses of what might happen if it
  1154. 44:04explodes and then people say what do you
  1155. 44:06mean it could explode it couldn't
  1156. 44:08explode okay because there was a
  1157. 44:09hydrogen over pressure no oxygen but a
  1158. 44:12simple question asked by you know a very
  1159. 44:14good man and chairman henry was a very
  1160. 44:16good man a very good engineer and
  1161. 44:17scientist uh you know
  1162. 44:19got out of control okay so i think today
  1163. 44:23you know everybody is more sensitive we
  1164. 44:25have all learned from this um just like
  1165. 44:28we've learned from fukushima and all
  1166. 44:30this so the nrc and the industry in
  1167. 44:32america you know
  1168. 44:34does watch its operating world much
  1169. 44:36closer today and we had not before three
  1170. 44:39mile island i mean there's especially
  1171. 44:41there's a whole lot of things we should
  1172. 44:43have known but we didn't know so the
  1173. 44:46fundamentals were changed
  1174. 44:49so i got another question um so
  1175. 44:53like this it goes like this mr barrett
  1176. 44:56looks irritated after some questions by
  1177. 44:59the netflix interviewer
  1178. 45:01did he know the purpose of the
  1179. 45:03documentary beforehand or did he
  1180. 45:05discover the tone of the interview
  1181. 45:07during the interview
  1182. 45:10the latter i mean i i'm
  1183. 45:12i'm a complete novice when it comes to
  1184. 45:15hollywood okay i don't know anything
  1185. 45:17about it i'm kind of trusting uh i was a
  1186. 45:20real eye-opener to me um netflix said
  1187. 45:23they want to become more of a news
  1188. 45:24organization and they wanted to know and
  1189. 45:26i said okay i'll talk to you so i had
  1190. 45:29several interviews with them you know
  1191. 45:30off camera and none of this parks and
  1192. 45:33none of this was ever mentioned um and
  1193. 45:36they wanted to know about the accident
  1194. 45:37and and so we started off i agreed to do
  1195. 45:41uh i i checked with some other friends
  1196. 45:43who that interviewed in pennsylvania and
  1197. 45:46they said it was pretty straightforward
  1198. 45:47and so i trusted them so i went and did
  1199. 45:50this interview for the it was a three
  1200. 45:52hour long interview for the first 45
  1201. 45:54minutes it was pretty straightforward
  1202. 45:56and then all of a sudden
  1203. 45:59it went into
  1204. 46:00you know when did you stop beating your
  1205. 46:01spouse kind of questions
  1206. 46:03so i knew this was not going to be good
  1207. 46:06this was a setup
  1208. 46:08and i had a choice you know fight or
  1209. 46:10flight
  1210. 46:10if i walked off the set they would say
  1211. 46:12see the government refuses to answer
  1212. 46:14questions uh or you fight and you try to
  1213. 46:17you know go through it and try to say to
  1214. 46:18say the whole story so it was another
  1215. 46:21three hours of
  1216. 46:22what terrible things did you do
  1217. 46:25so they did a lot of editing of course
  1218. 46:27and they would toward the i guess it was
  1219. 46:29two and a half hours i was getting a
  1220. 46:31little frustrated uh you know and bent
  1221. 46:33it a little bit which i should not have
  1222. 46:35done
  1223. 46:36um you know they tried to get me to say
  1224. 46:39things about the the ladies that were on
  1225. 46:41the show
  1226. 46:42uh did i know them i said yes i did i
  1227. 46:44hadn't talked to them in decades of
  1228. 46:46course um and you know to say something
  1229. 46:49negative about them which i would not do
  1230. 46:51these were these are good people they
  1231. 46:53still are good people uh traumatized
  1232. 46:55absolutely
  1233. 46:56okay uh but nonetheless uh so they were
  1234. 46:59trying to jazz it up so yeah i was
  1235. 47:01ambushed um but you know that goes with
  1236. 47:04life life isn't here all the time
  1237. 47:07right
  1238. 47:08well
  1239. 47:09uh you know
  1240. 47:11i think everyone in the nuclear
  1241. 47:12professional community
  1242. 47:14is grateful that you that you chose to
  1243. 47:16fight instead of
  1244. 47:18choose flight so um
  1245. 47:20now i've got one back on a question
  1246. 47:23related to the event itself you may or
  1247. 47:25may not know the answer to it but uh
  1248. 47:28it's i thought tmi management said to
  1249. 47:32turn off the safety injection pumps
  1250. 47:35shortly after o 800 not the operators
  1251. 47:38the operators kept the pumps running
  1252. 47:39does that uh you know
  1253. 47:41do you recall that
  1254. 47:44no i mean i don't think that's correct
  1255. 47:46now i guess i'm not sure what the person
  1256. 47:47means by management um the the shift
  1257. 47:50supervisor and the main on the three
  1258. 47:52operators in the control room made those
  1259. 47:55decisions okay uh these were um navy
  1260. 47:59operators uh they came out of the u.s
  1261. 48:01navy and part of i think the problem was
  1262. 48:04was a cultural one and uh let me explain
  1263. 48:06a little bit
  1264. 48:07the
  1265. 48:08these folks
  1266. 48:09um were trained for the bmw reactor but
  1267. 48:12it wasn't the in-depth training that
  1268. 48:14they really needed but they but their
  1269. 48:16most of their experience was with a
  1270. 48:18naval reactor which is a recirculating
  1271. 48:20steam generator okay now a naval reactor
  1272. 48:23uh as a as the recirculation has a lot
  1273. 48:26of thermal inertia to it you know
  1274. 48:27actually the analysis would be like
  1275. 48:29you're driving a cadillac you turn the
  1276. 48:31wheel and it kind of turns slowly this
  1277. 48:33is a 1980s cadillac not a new one uh and
  1278. 48:36um but the bmw reactor is a very
  1279. 48:38responsive super heat you know not a lot
  1280. 48:41of volume in the steam generator uh and
  1281. 48:43and it behaves quite differently nice
  1282. 48:45little like a ferrari you turn away a
  1283. 48:47little bit that thing can be in a ditch
  1284. 48:49and it can go very fast these operators
  1285. 48:52were trained in something that navy
  1286. 48:54operators remember never lose the bubble
  1287. 48:56okay now this was the pressurizer you
  1288. 48:59never lose the pressurizer bubble which
  1289. 49:01controls the pressure in a pressurized
  1290. 49:03water reactor which the navy ones all
  1291. 49:05are you never lose the bubble if you
  1292. 49:07were a trainee or an operator and you
  1293. 49:09lost the bubble your career was ruined
  1294. 49:11and you were laughed at by everybody in
  1295. 49:13every bar for the rest of your life so
  1296. 49:15you never ever lose the bubble
  1297. 49:17these operators when they really foul
  1298. 49:19was open
  1299. 49:20they thought they lost the bubble and it
  1300. 49:22was like the end of the world to lose
  1301. 49:24the bubble okay so when the injection
  1302. 49:27pumps went on they turned them off right
  1303. 49:29there there was no
  1304. 49:31vice president or senior manager or gary
  1305. 49:34miller who was the site manager telling
  1306. 49:36them now when the george clooner the
  1307. 49:38first you know
  1308. 49:40the green engineer
  1309. 49:42tech guy came in you know that that had
  1310. 49:44passed you know he asked so many sad
  1311. 49:47things happened for example when one of
  1312. 49:49when one of the engineers asked was is
  1313. 49:52the black valve closed the answer was
  1314. 49:54yes the black valve is closed what the
  1315. 49:56operator didn't tell him was i just shut
  1316. 49:58it five minutes ago
  1317. 50:00but it it opened all for the last three
  1318. 50:03hours right when they you know they
  1319. 50:04basically
  1320. 50:06so they had no idea what what they
  1321. 50:08really did but there's no
  1322. 50:10uh there was no cover-up as the thing
  1323. 50:13implies at the end people told them well
  1324. 50:15don't we knew that it melted um yeah i
  1325. 50:18talked with those operators you know
  1326. 50:20privately after and they were
  1327. 50:21interrogated by the rogue oven you know
  1328. 50:24investigation the chemin the president's
  1329. 50:26chemistry commission which were in-depth
  1330. 50:29reviews i didn't today the show implied
  1331. 50:33these were white washes those were not
  1332. 50:35white washes at all you can read those
  1333. 50:37reports those were strong independent
  1334. 50:39reports both of them but no there's no
  1335. 50:42basis to that that i know of
  1336. 50:43right right so so another another
  1337. 50:46question so how much has your experience
  1338. 50:49with tmi been applicable to the work
  1339. 50:52that you've been doing at fukushima i
  1340. 50:54mean i would assume to a certain extent
  1341. 50:55it's the same are there any differences
  1342. 50:57how has it helped you
  1343. 51:00uh
  1344. 51:01well i mean i i guess it helps but i
  1345. 51:04don't understand the
  1346. 51:06the
  1347. 51:07public situation uh responding to the
  1348. 51:10public and interfacing with the public
  1349. 51:12in fukushima over the water and
  1350. 51:13everything else is exactly the same as
  1351. 51:15three mile island we had nine thousand
  1352. 51:18tons of accident slightly tritiated
  1353. 51:20water at three mile island we could not
  1354. 51:22discharge into the susquehanna river
  1355. 51:24technically you could but
  1356. 51:26psychologically and social politically
  1357. 51:28you could not so it was evaporated into
  1358. 51:30the environment in the air so we had the
  1359. 51:33same uh dealing with the social
  1360. 51:35political aspects of it as they do in
  1361. 51:39japan um the technical challenge in
  1362. 51:42japan far exceeds that of three mile
  1363. 51:45island i mean the buildings are shambled
  1364. 51:47three melted cores the core is on the
  1365. 51:49floor it's it's eaten down into the
  1366. 51:52concrete um you know concrete through
  1367. 51:54superheated steam has been you know
  1368. 51:56blasted away with only rebar on the
  1369. 51:58pedestal so it is the technologically it
  1370. 52:01is a huge much bigger job to do we have
  1371. 52:05to do it robotically we can't send
  1372. 52:06people in we could put people in three
  1373. 52:08mile island but and and so that's the
  1374. 52:11difference
  1375. 52:12the management challenges are almost the
  1376. 52:14same um you know tepco like metropolitan
  1377. 52:17edison was an operating utility they
  1378. 52:19made electricity that's what they did um
  1379. 52:22and you know this is a cleanup job this
  1380. 52:24is like you know hanford tanks it's it's
  1381. 52:27a different type of business
  1382. 52:29so they have to work through getting
  1383. 52:31their traditional you know reactor
  1384. 52:34suppliers the sheep toshibas to apaches
  1385. 52:39mitsubishis to work together into a
  1386. 52:41cleanup team so the culture of of having
  1387. 52:46nuclear safety culture a la naval
  1388. 52:48reactors is is new to them uh so they
  1389. 52:51are going through the same management
  1390. 52:54transitions let me say to to change to
  1391. 52:59a cleanup so that's the same so i think
  1392. 53:02there's there's great similarities
  1393. 53:04between tmi and fukushima uh and there's
  1394. 53:07completely
  1395. 53:08dissimilar things as far as certainly
  1396. 53:10from technically uh fukushima is a much
  1397. 53:12greater much bigger task um it's orders
  1398. 53:16of magnitude
  1399. 53:18so so we get back and you mentioned
  1400. 53:20again in the context of the previous
  1401. 53:22question but it's it's the
  1402. 53:24socio-political challenges right those
  1403. 53:26in many ways you know there's
  1404. 53:28clearly a lot of similarities where the
  1405. 53:30the
  1406. 53:31you know when you look at the facts it's
  1407. 53:34not as serious as how people would
  1408. 53:36perceive what happened
  1409. 53:38and and that's always a challenge with
  1410. 53:39nuclear if there's one thing that
  1411. 53:42you could you know help everyone
  1412. 53:45understand about
  1413. 53:46whether it's radiation or the operation
  1414. 53:49of plants like as if there's
  1415. 53:51one little bit of information that we
  1416. 53:53truthful information that we could put
  1417. 53:54in everyone's brain that would make it
  1418. 53:56better what would it what would it be
  1419. 53:58like
  1420. 53:59all right so that's a that's a hard one
  1421. 54:01um i mean i think we have to recognize
  1422. 54:04we in the nuclear industry we have a a
  1423. 54:07negative stigma of the nuclear bomb and
  1424. 54:09we saw it in the pictures constantly of
  1425. 54:11the that's kind of was our
  1426. 54:14sad origin okay a weapon a weapon uh
  1427. 54:17whereas we really are concentrated
  1428. 54:20energy that's that's clean and the most
  1429. 54:22concentrated form that we have uh to go
  1430. 54:25forward and we have to recognize that uh
  1431. 54:28we have to work in a democracy anyway
  1432. 54:30which we are you know the people vote on
  1433. 54:33what they believe uh and
  1434. 54:35and that matters you know you know
  1435. 54:37elections matter so we have to as we go
  1436. 54:39through as a country has to make choices
  1437. 54:41or it's energy for clean energy we have
  1438. 54:44to
  1439. 54:44address the safety and stigma issue uh
  1440. 54:47as to how we are prepared for this uh i
  1441. 54:50mean many times when i've spoken to
  1442. 54:53in
  1443. 54:53students university types uh you know i
  1444. 54:56said no when cavemen uh discovered fire
  1445. 54:59it was a great thing on our evolution uh
  1446. 55:01as far as their cooking meet and keeping
  1447. 55:03our our huts warm but it also could burn
  1448. 55:05your hut down and it and it can and it
  1449. 55:07hurts you so you have to respect it and
  1450. 55:09you respect nuclear energy uh we need to
  1451. 55:12have the appropriate systems for it um
  1452. 55:15but recognize that people don't
  1453. 55:16necessarily see it like we do and if you
  1454. 55:19just do just the pure technical thing
  1455. 55:21well don't worry about it that's
  1456. 55:22perfectly low risk that's that's that's
  1457. 55:24it and
  1458. 55:26sort of
  1459. 55:27dismiss it
  1460. 55:28uh we're doing a disservice because the
  1461. 55:31perception is critical i used i some
  1462. 55:35when i was younger i used to think
  1463. 55:36perception doesn't matter reality is all
  1464. 55:38that matters the older i get you know
  1465. 55:40perception matters sometimes almost as
  1466. 55:43much as reality and if you look at uh
  1467. 55:46you know what my grandkids will do with
  1468. 55:47these internet things okay some of them
  1469. 55:50almost live in an unrealistic world but
  1470. 55:53some people can survive a long time in
  1471. 55:55in virtual reality which is kind of sad
  1472. 55:58but nonetheless that's our society
  1473. 56:00somewhat so we need to be conscious of
  1474. 56:03that
  1475. 56:04going forward and and be more attentive
  1476. 56:07and
  1477. 56:08responsive to people's fundamental
  1478. 56:11information needs
  1479. 56:13as we
  1480. 56:15promote as we should promote
  1481. 56:17nuclear energy as a safe clean future uh
  1482. 56:21as long as we don't get complacent about
  1483. 56:23it and we're not
  1484. 56:24in my view
  1485. 56:25for our future for our great grandkids
  1486. 56:28well i think like that that this
  1487. 56:30conversation today has has
  1488. 56:33has made a contribution to that effort
  1489. 56:35as i as i mentioned in the beginning you
  1490. 56:38know very much similar to your point um
  1491. 56:40we live in an algorithm-driven world
  1492. 56:43right netflix
  1493. 56:44chooses the content that they provide
  1494. 56:47based on
  1495. 56:48a level of individual information about
  1496. 56:51people's viewing habits
  1497. 56:53that
  1498. 56:54you know we didn't have even 10 or 15
  1499. 56:56years ago and so uh you know there's in
  1500. 56:59many ways a greater power to to scare
  1501. 57:03people that want to be scared but
  1502. 57:05there's also an opportunity thankfully
  1503. 57:07through the internet to be able to
  1504. 57:09always
  1505. 57:11provide that additional information out
  1506. 57:13there to let people make up their own
  1507. 57:15minds and really lay it out for the for
  1508. 57:18the historical record for anybody that's
  1509. 57:20interested in in diving deeper in this
  1510. 57:22topic so
  1511. 57:24um with that i'm gonna uh thank you for
  1512. 57:26participating today thank you for your
  1513. 57:28service to the nuclear community over
  1514. 57:30five decades
  1515. 57:32and um and
  1516. 57:34we you know look forward to having more
  1517. 57:36conversations like this with you
  1518. 57:38and and your colleagues down the line
  1519. 57:41but in the meantime i want to thank
  1520. 57:43everyone for joining us today uh we will
  1521. 57:46make a recording of this available to
  1522. 57:48members later on today and i think we
  1523. 57:52will probably make this available to the
  1524. 57:54public at a point at which we can get it
  1525. 57:56into a form and put it on youtube so i
  1526. 57:59would say for those that will be
  1527. 58:00watching on youtube i'm going to do what
  1528. 58:03everybody else does and say click the
  1529. 58:05link below for more information but in
  1530. 58:08the meantime thank you lake have a good
  1531. 58:10rest of the week thank you everyone for
  1532. 58:12joining us and we'll see you again soon
  1533. 58:14thank you greg
  1534. 58:16thank you

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