What Really Happened at Three Mile Island? American Nuclear Society interviews Lake Barrett — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:01hello
- 0:02and welcome to a special ans event on
- 0:06what really happened at three mile
- 0:08island i'm craig piercy i'm the
- 0:10executive director and ceo of ans and
- 0:14i'll be serving as today's moderator
- 0:16i'll be interviewing lake barrett who
- 0:19led the nrc's cleanup efforts at three
- 0:21mile island before we begin a few
- 0:24program notes we'll be taking a few
- 0:26questions toward the end of today's
- 0:28program
- 0:29please use the q a function to submit
- 0:31them we'll get to as many as we can in
- 0:34the time allotted
- 0:36note that the event is being recorded
- 0:37and a link to the video will be emailed
- 0:40to you later today
- 0:42certificates of attendance are available
- 0:44by request please see the chat for
- 0:47contact information
- 0:49and finally we ask that all participants
- 0:51adhere to the ans code of ethics and
- 0:54respectful behavior policy which can be
- 0:56found at ans.org
- 0:59okay let's get into it
- 1:03unit two of the three mile island
- 1:05nuclear power plant near middletown
- 1:07pennsylvania experienced a partial
- 1:09meltdown of its core on march 28 1979
- 1:14though its small radioactive releases
- 1:17had no discernible effects on plant
- 1:20personnel or the public
- 1:22it was the most serious accident in u.s
- 1:25commercial operating history
- 1:27the accident led to major reforms in the
- 1:30operation and regulation of u.s nuclear
- 1:32plants
- 1:33which helped make nuclear today one of
- 1:35the safest forms of energy available to
- 1:37humankind
- 1:40last month netflix released a four-part
- 1:43docu-drama entitled meltdown three-mile
- 1:46island
- 1:47in it the showrunners blend a mix of
- 1:50honestly great arcable footage of the
- 1:52event and its aftermath
- 1:54into a dark risky
- 1:57a dark narrative of risky cleanup
- 1:59maneuvers that put the quote survival of
- 2:02the east coast in the balance
- 2:05in may 2022
- 2:07the show spent one week on the top of
- 2:09u.s netflix top 10 list
- 2:12two weeks on the canada top ten
- 2:14and one each for slovakia and new
- 2:16zealand before the ratings fell off
- 2:19yet in our algorithm-driven world
- 2:22one that increasingly blurs the
- 2:24distinction between journalism and
- 2:26entertainment
- 2:28shows like the meltdown
- 2:30live on in the netflix recommendation
- 2:32engine
- 2:33and can exert a hidden pull on our
- 2:35collective perception of history
- 2:38that's why we at ans thought it was
- 2:40important to ensure that the historical
- 2:42record is there for anyone looking to
- 2:45answer the question
- 2:47what really happened at tmi
- 2:50now i'd like to introduce our guest lake
- 2:52barrett
- 2:53lake is an independent consultant in the
- 2:55energy field serving both government and
- 2:58commercial capacities in the nuclear
- 3:00energy and nuclear materials management
- 3:02areas for over five decades he currently
- 3:05supports the recovery of the fukushima
- 3:08nuclear reactor accident as a senior
- 3:10advisor to the japanese government and
- 3:12the tokyo electric power company
- 3:15at the nuclear regulatory commission
- 3:18he served at multiple senior technical
- 3:21and executive positions including his
- 3:23time as the on-site director and senior
- 3:26federal official for the cleanup of the
- 3:29three-mile island reactor accident
- 3:31for additional information on lake
- 3:34please see below or on the chat
- 3:36and so with that
- 3:38lake welcome thank you for joining us
- 3:41um
- 3:42glad you're here
- 3:44thank you craig pleasure to be here
- 3:46so let's start at the beginning
- 3:48how did lake barrett get into nuclear
- 3:52well um i graduated uh with a bs degree
- 3:55in mechanical engineering from
- 3:57university to connecticut in 1967
- 4:00my father had recently died and my
- 4:02mother was widow so i needed to stay
- 4:04close to home so i went to work at
- 4:06electric boat division of general
- 4:07dynamics in groton connecticut
- 4:10and worked as a first a s5w reactor test
- 4:14engineer uh training and then in design
- 4:17and construction operation uh i served
- 4:20as a
- 4:21radiological engineer for the last
- 4:24refueling of the uss nautilus
- 4:26also as a decommissioning engineer for
- 4:29the us triton our only two reactors so i
- 4:32got a lot of experience uh there at
- 4:34electric boat
- 4:35as adam rick over a contractor i was
- 4:38extremely indoctrinated in the admiral
- 4:40rickover nuclear culture management
- 4:42world which came to serve me very well
- 4:44later on in life
- 4:47so now
- 4:48on the day of the accident you obviously
- 4:51weren't there
- 4:52tell me a little bit about what you were
- 4:54doing in those first days when you were
- 4:56with the nrc
- 4:58okay i was with the nrc in the division
- 5:00of operating reactors in bethesda
- 5:02maryland on that day uh we'd heard that
- 5:05morning at 10 a.m
- 5:08that there had been a declared emergency
- 5:09at three mile island the nrc emergency
- 5:12operations center was activated in
- 5:14another adjacent building um and i
- 5:17reported there with many other people
- 5:19but there was a complete lack of
- 5:21information other than it was declared
- 5:24uh it was said there were high radiation
- 5:26levels in the uh containment building um
- 5:30we asked how why was that and the answer
- 5:33was that there was a uh transient uh due
- 5:36to the trip or the of the reactor and
- 5:39the cobalt 60 might be you know in the
- 5:41primary coolant system but the numbers
- 5:43were too high and we were very skeptical
- 5:46and wanted more information but there
- 5:48was no more information to be obtained
- 5:51from the control room because the
- 5:52operators themselves at that time uh
- 5:54were were confused as to exactly you
- 5:57know what had happened
- 6:01so uh now there's been some discussion
- 6:04about whether or not there was actually
- 6:06a hydrogen explosion that occurred on
- 6:09that on that first day and dan i think
- 6:12we
- 6:13we may have some pictures uh that we can
- 6:16put up that that that show some of the
- 6:18things that happened inside the reactor
- 6:20so i think we want to go on to
- 6:22go on beyond that and then beyond that
- 6:25one so uh you know like talk us you know
- 6:28talk us through some of these pictures
- 6:29was was there an explosion
- 6:32no there was not a detonation or an
- 6:35explosion of the hydrogen you know in
- 6:37the uh containment uh what happened was
- 6:40as the core was damaged and we already
- 6:41said the core was severely damaged in
- 6:43here for the first several years because
- 6:45we didn't know if there was any actually
- 6:47any melting of the core or not
- 6:49melting is a very difficult word insofar
- 6:52as is it a jane fonda meltdown or is it
- 6:54just the physical you know melting of
- 6:56you know of the fuel inside the reactor
- 6:58vessel
- 6:59but anyway what happened was a lot of
- 7:01hydrogen was released into the
- 7:03containment building uh around 1 pm on
- 7:06the 28th there was a
- 7:09deflagration a burning of it now
- 7:11basically it's something like if you
- 7:12turn your gas grill on and don't put a
- 7:15match in or a lighter in right away and
- 7:17then you do a little bit later you get a
- 7:18big woof and and a flame front goes
- 7:21through uh when we got into the
- 7:23containment building a year later we
- 7:25could see evidence of what happened as
- 7:28you can see in this picture here uh you
- 7:30can see the pressure spike of around two
- 7:32atmospheres um you know did collapse the
- 7:34drum uh the pressure wave threw a steel
- 7:37door open and and uh you know
- 7:39bent the door uh some of the other
- 7:41pictures please dan you had passed um
- 7:45there was a melted phone you can see
- 7:46from narration but but there was no
- 7:48shock wave there was no uh explosion per
- 7:51se because the phone still was sitting
- 7:53on the edge of the edge of the table um
- 7:55one of the other ones you can see uh the
- 7:59this is inside one of the cabinets you
- 8:00can see on the right hand side the paint
- 8:03was was peeled off the cover of the
- 8:06metal cabinet but inside were were
- 8:08plastics that were untouched and the one
- 8:11before that you can see
- 8:13um plastic that was wrapping on wooden
- 8:16scaffolding that is
- 8:17was charred
- 8:19but the scaffolding was not uh moved
- 8:22anywhere so there was no explosion
- 8:23inside there was a there was a rapid
- 8:25burn
- 8:28so you were
- 8:29you were at tmi twice right once
- 8:33immediately after the the events of
- 8:36march 28th and then obviously a longer
- 8:39term of duty uh as the the the senior
- 8:43nrc official on site uh maybe you know
- 8:46talk about both of those uh you know
- 8:49what did you do immediately after and
- 8:51then and then you know we can we can get
- 8:54into that longer um you know that longer
- 8:57tenure during the cleanup
- 8:59okay well initially when we were the
- 9:01first days uh i was in bethesda uh for
- 9:04the first week uh and and that evolved
- 9:07into the chaotic times of the lack of
- 9:10communication from the control room uh
- 9:13information kind of slowly drifted into
- 9:16us uh it was you know
- 9:18early thursday we started to realize
- 9:21that there was significant core damage
- 9:23was confirmed when the sample was taken
- 9:26um you know it was very highly
- 9:27radioactive
- 9:28we so we knew there was severe core
- 9:30damage nothing we didn't know for sure
- 9:32yet but it didn't really matter because
- 9:34we knew the core had probably collapsed
- 9:36and we also learned about the pressure
- 9:39excursion the burn inside the
- 9:40containment building so we knew we had a
- 9:42severe situation
- 9:44and we started getting into mitigation
- 9:46efforts to support
- 9:48how to mitigate this and also to try to
- 9:50improve the communications but it was
- 9:52very difficult to extract information
- 9:55out of the out of the site because we
- 9:57didn't know they didn't know themselves
- 10:00i don't believe there was any
- 10:01intentional withholding of the
- 10:03information by any of the people who
- 10:05were there
- 10:06there were nrc people in the control
- 10:07room along with the gpu med ed people at
- 10:10the time uh so but we were gathering the
- 10:13information uh then there was known as
- 10:15black friday uh when we had the you know
- 10:18evacuation situation um we were looking
- 10:20at the situation of of degassing the
- 10:24primary coolant system which was heavy
- 10:26in hydrogen um and uh
- 10:28we were filling the um through the waste
- 10:32gas compressors the tanks and we did
- 10:34some advanced calculations about
- 10:36potentially um you know how significant
- 10:38that might be from a public health and
- 10:40safety point of view
- 10:42we've done some quick calculations based
- 10:44on the first sampling and we thought if
- 10:46if the relief valves had lifted in those
- 10:48in those tanks that would be about a
- 10:501200 mr per hour at the site boundary um
- 10:54i was in the process of briefing the
- 10:56executive committee and harold denton
- 10:58dixtello
- 11:01at that time friday morning and then a
- 11:04report came in from the from the site
- 11:06that there was 1200 milligram per hour
- 11:09reading now it was
- 11:10assumed by us erroneously
- 11:13that that was a site boundary reading
- 11:14where it was a helicopter hovering over
- 11:16the exhaust vent um but that kicked in a
- 11:20a dialogue by the senior folks there
- 11:23about what should be done and there was
- 11:24just so much frustration due to the lack
- 11:26of you know information um that we had
- 11:30from the site so uh
- 11:32ended up with the governor having a
- 11:34precautionary evacuation
- 11:36basically due to the uncertainty that we
- 11:38had but reality was
- 11:40on wednesday night when the main coolant
- 11:42pump was was restarted the plant was
- 11:45thermodynamically stable you know at
- 11:47that point but we were degassing uh down
- 11:50through the letdown system and there was
- 11:52iodine in the
- 11:54air in the auxiliary building very high
- 11:56radiation levels due to the you know the
- 11:58fission products that were in the let
- 12:00down primary cooling system um so that
- 12:02that continued on uh that week uh and
- 12:06then we sort of had a shift turnover and
- 12:07then i went
- 12:09the following week i was to relieve the
- 12:11first set of nrc people with harold
- 12:13denton at the site so i spent three
- 12:15weeks at the site basically mitigating
- 12:17iodine that was being released from the
- 12:20um
- 12:21auxiliary building very low levels but
- 12:23nonetheless measures you know we could
- 12:24measure it um so it was changing the
- 12:27charcoal and
- 12:28in the filters and that sort of thing is
- 12:30what we were doing and ben rushi um
- 12:34was was my boss there uh you know at
- 12:36that at that time
- 12:39so uh and just just really quickly so
- 12:41you were measuring 1200 milligram and
- 12:43that that does get referenced in the
- 12:45series but that was from the exhaust
- 12:47stack that was ins that was not at the
- 12:49boundary that was in the plant itself so
- 12:52so
- 12:53you can reasonably assume that those
- 12:55read you know the the elevated readings
- 12:57that occurred
- 12:59around the plant kind of came from that
- 13:01concentrated source
- 13:03basically it was the exhaust valley
- 13:06out of the stack at that point but they
- 13:08were relatively low um that was a spike
- 13:10of noble gases that was a noble gas
- 13:14xenon 133 primarily at that time
- 13:17which has very low biological
- 13:19significance and decays away very
- 13:21rapidly so although the gamma level was
- 13:23fairly high but it was a local right
- 13:25over it was not at the site boundary the
- 13:27site the maximum site boundary doses you
- 13:29know for the entire period if people had
- 13:31even stayed there which they didn't
- 13:33there wasn't anybody there uh would have
- 13:35been you know nominally 100 milligram
- 13:37total if they'd stayed there the entire
- 13:39week which that was not the case and we
- 13:41have tld systems all around um the the
- 13:45site that we we can back calculate what
- 13:47those were um so we we had that data and
- 13:50that's in the ans uh wire uh article
- 13:54that
- 13:55published
- 13:56so 100 milligram just just for just for
- 13:59comparison would be
- 14:00the additional radiation you might get
- 14:03in certain high altitude parts of living
- 14:05in certain high altitude parts of
- 14:07colorado for a year um or
- 14:09actually 85 milligram working or living
- 14:12in the us capital for a year because of
- 14:14the radioactive uh
- 14:16uh
- 14:17marble
- 14:18so uh so
- 14:20your your second tour of duty you're
- 14:22there you're the you know essentially
- 14:25the lead nrc official in charge of the
- 14:27cleanup this is you know after the
- 14:29site's been been stabilized and and
- 14:32so i want to go into a little bit about
- 14:36the balance that you had to strike
- 14:39to on the one hand be
- 14:41expeditious and getting the site cleaned
- 14:44up but also being deliberate about the
- 14:47actions that you took to ensure there
- 14:49weren't any unintended consequences of
- 14:52it can you talk a little bit about that
- 14:54you know that balance and how you
- 14:56maintain that balance
- 14:58uh yes um in
- 15:00the fall of 80 but a year later is when
- 15:03i was asked to go and be the site
- 15:05director by harold denton and and john
- 15:07hearn who was the chairman of the nrc at
- 15:09that time uh so i went there and the job
- 15:12was to be sure the public health and
- 15:14safety is protected and to get the
- 15:16cleanup done as quickly as we safely can
- 15:19do
- 15:20because there was an unknown risk of
- 15:22what the core conditions were we didn't
- 15:24know we know it's severely damaged
- 15:26but we didn't know if it was melted or
- 15:28not we didn't know how the reactor
- 15:29vessel was on the base so there was many
- 15:31uncertainties and we wanted to get it
- 15:34into an engineered design condition as
- 15:37opposed to an undesigned condition that
- 15:39we were in so timeliness had a risk
- 15:42factor to it as well but safety was
- 15:44first and uh to reduce the the the
- 15:47uncertainty risk uh was the second part
- 15:51of it so this was a balance that we had
- 15:54um to do and as i said
- 15:56everybody in america pitched together to
- 15:58solve this problem now the situation
- 16:01when i arrived there was was very
- 16:03difficult for everyone
- 16:05america we had no one had ever estab uh
- 16:08you know faced the situation of you know
- 16:11a severely damaged core it comes out
- 16:13partially melted core um high very high
- 16:16radiation readings throughout the plant
- 16:19uh we had you know many r per hour you
- 16:22know inside the containment building and
- 16:24some places the auxiliary building um we
- 16:27had
- 16:28three meters nine feet of water in the
- 16:30containment building highly radioactive
- 16:32cesium strontium this had to be dealt
- 16:34with we'd never dealt with that type of
- 16:36thing before in america now to to to
- 16:39deal with this
- 16:40a whole team had to be created under
- 16:42under basically gpu nuclear took over
- 16:45from metropolitan edison who was you
- 16:47know the original owner of it and we had
- 16:50to put together basically four different
- 16:51cultures into a team and some of this
- 16:54resulted in some of the procedural
- 16:56issues we're going to talk about in a
- 16:58moment but basically to to be successful
- 17:01with the challenge of the cleanup of
- 17:04severely damaged reactor like this first
- 17:06you had to have the utility owner that
- 17:08was gpu nuclear
- 17:10they owned it they had the operators who
- 17:12knew the plant were there we had to
- 17:14bring in new technologies past what
- 17:17operating reactor people do because the
- 17:19cesium and strontium was out of the fuel
- 17:21it was in the water it was in the air in
- 17:23places so we had to bring in
- 17:25technologies from the doe nuclear
- 17:27laboratory systems who had dealt with
- 17:29that and reprocessing in the defense
- 17:31industry so the hanford the oak ridge
- 17:33savannah river technologies needed to be
- 17:36brought in we needed to bring in
- 17:38substantial engineering and construction
- 17:40refurbishment work like to rebuild the
- 17:42polar crane so gpu
- 17:45hired bechtel national to be part of
- 17:47that team their preeminent you know
- 17:49architect engineering company so they
- 17:51were part of the team and we had a new
- 17:53management structure brought in uh which
- 17:56basically was the naval nuclear
- 17:58management safety culture conduct of
- 18:01operations
- 18:02manager so we had a lot of that
- 18:04management culture infused now putting
- 18:07these four different cultures together
- 18:10into an effective team was a managerial
- 18:14challenge and communications and
- 18:15understanding and learning uh what was a
- 18:18major was a major part of it but this
- 18:21was the situation we had uh moving
- 18:24forward to do
- 18:25very complex
- 18:26um tasks for example we had to build a
- 18:29whole new system to process the nine
- 18:31feet of water in the basement to to
- 18:33reduce the gamma radiation levels the
- 18:35polar crane which was on the top of the
- 18:38reactor building had to be refurbished
- 18:40because we had to remove the 40-ton
- 18:43missile shields
- 18:44to eventually remove the head and the
- 18:46inner plenum to get access down into the
- 18:49damaged fuel uh we we had to do the what
- 18:53was the quick look was to get data on
- 18:55what was inside so we could decide was
- 18:58this was this going to have to be
- 18:59totally robotics or could we put humans
- 19:01in there uh so we did a lot of
- 19:03decontamination the quick look where we
- 19:06then discovered that the top you know
- 19:08five feet of the core had collapsed down
- 19:10underneath um so we we learned all of
- 19:13these things to to move forward and and
- 19:16part of this was the the the the tmi
- 19:20team i will say which is gpu because
- 19:22needed to work to refurbish the polar
- 19:24crane uh and that was uh one of the
- 19:27example of one of the
- 19:29major tasks we had to do besides water
- 19:31and all the other tasks we had
- 19:34so uh
- 19:36so complicated relationship between the
- 19:38partners but
- 19:40um a a defined uh a defined set of
- 19:43objectives now in the show
- 19:46there's discussion about
- 19:48um the pressure to move to move fast um
- 19:52did you feel that pressure
- 19:55no i mean
- 19:57expediency prompt safe cleanup was
- 19:59important so prompt yes that was
- 20:02important because we wanted to get the
- 20:03core out okay we wanted to get it into
- 20:06engineer design configuration not an
- 20:08unknown configuration sitting in the
- 20:10bottom we wanted to get the cesium and
- 20:12strontium that was in the water uh and
- 20:15air and other waste we wanted to get
- 20:16those into a designed for waste
- 20:18management controlled system in place so
- 20:21we we constantly were working on these
- 20:24with the integrated cleanup team and
- 20:26what was done gpu put together the
- 20:29bechtel people in with the gpu people
- 20:32and they had a unified tmi2 procedural
- 20:35system
- 20:36where they basically adapted the best
- 20:39procedures from each of these
- 20:41organizations to do specific tasks
- 20:44and this is where the differences of
- 20:46opinion
- 20:47amongst individuals is to which
- 20:49procedures you should use for what tasks
- 20:54in the case of the poll ukraine evolved
- 20:59from this procedural differences of
- 21:01opinion
- 21:02and
- 21:04as it related to the polar crane
- 21:06there were
- 21:08this was considered by gpu to be a major
- 21:10refurbishment now the polar crane was a
- 21:13major construction refurbishment job
- 21:16uh all the wiring had to be replaced
- 21:18because it was all damaged by by the
- 21:20heat and radiation
- 21:22the brakes had to be replaced structural
- 21:25integrity had to be checked very
- 21:27carefully i was a 500 ton capacity crane
- 21:30um and it was needed to remove first the
- 21:3340 ton
- 21:35missile shields which there were four of
- 21:36them over the reactor head uh and then
- 21:39uh needed to be tested and then to then
- 21:42to lift the
- 21:43ton head itself the head assembly had to
- 21:46be taken off and then the smaller plenum
- 21:49had to be pulled out to get access to
- 21:51the core so we knew this had to be done
- 21:54uh and given that this was a lot of
- 21:57vector work to do the refurbishment
- 22:00they chose a procedure known as a work
- 22:02package
- 22:03okay and a lot of the differences of
- 22:05opinion between mr parks and bechtel and
- 22:08gpu
- 22:09had to do with which type of procedure
- 22:12was to be used
- 22:14the
- 22:15work packages that construction
- 22:17companies normally did could adapt all
- 22:20the quality assurance requirements
- 22:23but the focus was primarily from a
- 22:24construction work type of thing
- 22:27the utility people who were
- 22:29used they were used to not doing a lot
- 22:31of heavy construction but construction
- 22:32mods at a plant used engineering chain
- 22:35notice known as type procedures and they
- 22:37were somewhat different but both of them
- 22:39will achieve the nuclear quality
- 22:41assurance requirements of the nuclear
- 22:43regulatory commission and we had we
- 22:46checked that over and we checked the
- 22:48safety of it
- 22:49i had as the director i had
- 22:51responsibility to sign off on every
- 22:54gpu operating procedure involving
- 22:56substantial amounts of radioactivity i
- 22:59signed about a thousand procedures a
- 23:00year and i had a staff of 18 to 20
- 23:03people and we reviewed them and we
- 23:05worked closely knowing technically what
- 23:07was going on at the plant
- 23:09now we knew that we were moving in the
- 23:11let me say the the
- 23:13february of 1983 moving toward the polar
- 23:17crane
- 23:18we were we at nrc knew that gpu was
- 23:22using the bechtel um work package type
- 23:26procedures which was okay with us
- 23:28because it met the uh engineering
- 23:30quality assurance requirements if they
- 23:32had chosen to use the ecn type that
- 23:34would have been okay too okay but we it
- 23:37was an administrative issue
- 23:39mr can i can i can i stop you there for
- 23:42a second like because i want to just i
- 23:44want to make sure
- 23:46i understand this because it is it is a
- 23:48significant part of the show so so what
- 23:51you're suggesting is that what the
- 23:54netflix show presents as as sort of a
- 23:56major safety risk
- 23:58was
- 23:59actually a disagreement over what the
- 24:02the flavor of paperwork that would be
- 24:04required to document the improvements
- 24:06needed to to um get the polar crane
- 24:10running and and get the missile shields
- 24:12and the reactor head off is that
- 24:14a fair way of describing it
- 24:16yes yes it was
- 24:19it was it was an issue of the procedural
- 24:21paperwork
- 24:22um when uh
- 24:24mr parks didn't like the way that it was
- 24:27being done he wanted to use the ecn type
- 24:30approach
- 24:31and he basically came to us at the nrc
- 24:34confidentially and we recognized his
- 24:36confidentiality saying that gpu was
- 24:38doing this the wrong way and we said
- 24:41well
- 24:41tell us what from a safety point of view
- 24:43is wrong
- 24:44and he couldn't say that other than i
- 24:46don't like their procedure
- 24:48uh and he says i'm not sure that they
- 24:49did calculations like they should
- 24:52so i think it was february 18 1983 he
- 24:55came to me okay and i said we will look
- 24:59into this uh and and see
- 25:01you know the merits of of the case um we
- 25:04looked that we did a surprise inspection
- 25:06that week at bechtel gaithersburg office
- 25:08uh and the calculations were there and
- 25:10they were following the procedures uh
- 25:12the following friday i had a meeting
- 25:14with him and and we told him again we
- 25:17didn't see anything from a safety point
- 25:19of view wrong okay
- 25:21is there any safety issue that you have
- 25:23that you think is not being corrected
- 25:25besides the administrative procedure
- 25:27they're using and there was he said no
- 25:30and if you look in the uh
- 25:327 57 page affidavit that he filed with
- 25:35the nrc uh later objecting to my
- 25:39decision
- 25:41there was no safety issue other than the
- 25:43procedural one so it was it was
- 25:45administrative uh there was always in
- 25:48the show there was this thing about it
- 25:50upcoming lift uh there was nothing
- 25:52scheduled uh for the next two months
- 25:55i had not gotten the procedures yet for
- 25:57operations um when we first procedures
- 26:00came to me
- 26:02on march 10th i think it was i i
- 26:04disapproved them because they had not
- 26:07done the
- 26:08proper rigging for uh certifications for
- 26:12the for the slings for the for the lift
- 26:15um
- 26:16but uh and then and then after that mr
- 26:19parks uh complained to my superiors i
- 26:21told him he had the right to do it if
- 26:22you didn't agree with me he could go to
- 26:24the commission and he did
- 26:26and the commission asked for a a
- 26:28investigation of it which is fine and
- 26:31they did and then it became more of a
- 26:33public
- 26:34public issue
- 26:36so with that uh difference of opinion on
- 26:39the procedures um we know we we moved
- 26:42forward um there was testing there was
- 26:44always going to be testing of the crane
- 26:46uh the show had an impression that there
- 26:48was a commission meeting and a
- 26:50last-minute thing there was no such
- 26:52commission meeting that day that's
- 26:53totally fictitious uh what they have uh
- 26:56in the show but it makes good television
- 26:58i guess um and um you know
- 27:02one of the things i know i had a meeting
- 27:03with governor thornberg he asked what is
- 27:05all this about i explained to him what
- 27:06it was
- 27:08and i said we're going to be doubly sure
- 27:09any lifts in that containment will be
- 27:11done safely
- 27:12and i said that i personally would be in
- 27:14there on the first heavy lift
- 27:16so the reviews were done the gpu made
- 27:19the necessary you know improvements that
- 27:21we'd you know requested to do um and the
- 27:25crane went forward and and did
- 27:26successful lifts um you know later so i
- 27:29think it's february of 84 that was was
- 27:31the time um you know where's the lift i
- 27:34think dan has a picture uh yeah dan dan
- 27:37put up the picture uh of lake because
- 27:40again you committed to the governor that
- 27:41you were gonna be there at the time
- 27:43right so you you suited up and went in
- 27:45yeah that was me getting ready to go in
- 27:47if you notice i have a camera there i
- 27:48was for a lot of reasons you're just not
- 27:50going to stand in there and watch so i
- 27:52was the photographer um you know for the
- 27:54for the lifting of the first heavy lifts
- 27:57and the next picture uh i think was the
- 28:00lifting of the go back one there we go
- 28:03that was the first heavy lift this is
- 28:05the 40 ton
- 28:06missile shield that was lifted we took
- 28:08the 440 ton uh
- 28:11reactor head shields which you see one
- 28:13here
- 28:14with the pressurizer shield to give a
- 28:17test rig to actually do a 170 ton test
- 28:20lift
- 28:21to test and prove that the crane uh
- 28:24would be capable of lifting the uh
- 28:27the head
- 28:28the show has a whole lot of comments
- 28:30about how an accident would have caused
- 28:33a disaster in central pennsylvania
- 28:36supercriticality
- 28:38melting of the core
- 28:39none of that is technically feasible
- 28:42the decay heat of the core at the time
- 28:44uh in 1983 was 24 kilowatts that's about
- 28:48uh 18 to 20 home hair dryers uh not
- 28:51enough heat that was going to to melt
- 28:53anything at all but um you know none of
- 28:56that was none of that was mentioned
- 28:58well and let me just i do want to go to
- 29:00one thing here and dan i think you can
- 29:02take the you can you can take the screen
- 29:05share off so
- 29:06so like i want to i want to zero in on
- 29:08that point so
- 29:10at the time at which you were doing the
- 29:13the reactor head lift
- 29:16the the energy in the core was you know
- 29:18let's call it 18 let's call it 18 hair
- 29:21dryers um
- 29:24did richard did richard parks know that
- 29:26when when he made that when he made his
- 29:28claims could he have known that
- 29:31he he should have known it i mean he
- 29:32wasn't a degreed engineer but he had
- 29:34been a nuclear trained you know operator
- 29:36so i mean uh
- 29:39in my discussions that i had with him
- 29:41now this is my memory from 40 years ago
- 29:44uh and in all the documentation at the
- 29:46time he never brought up a specific uh
- 29:49issue other than the procedures weren't
- 29:51being done as he thought they ought to
- 29:53be done so i don't know honestly what he
- 29:56did or didn't know we never had a
- 29:58technical discussion when i asked him
- 30:00what is your safety concern other than
- 30:03procedures
- 30:04um there wasn't any at that time so what
- 30:07he had in the show was what he had in
- 30:09the show
- 30:10right so but again i think that the you
- 30:13know the show kind of
- 30:16lays out the scenario where the head
- 30:18drops and it damages the fuel and and
- 30:20you know east coast the east coast is is
- 30:23you know is um
- 30:26at least some part of it is rendered
- 30:28uninhabitable at least that's you know
- 30:30the suggestion of it
- 30:31so you know
- 30:33moving on a little bit now to the um
- 30:36the restart of operations for unit one
- 30:40um you know this the show i think
- 30:42touches on it a bit but um
- 30:45you know obviously there there were
- 30:48you know there was some controversy
- 30:49around that locally
- 30:51um
- 30:52but
- 30:52was there you know was there anything in
- 30:54the decision to restart unit one that
- 30:57that that gave you pause at the time or
- 30:59gives you pause now how do you how do
- 31:02you view that that
- 31:03that decision
- 31:05well
- 31:06the the three-mile accident you know in
- 31:0879 and 80
- 31:10everybody did uh the reassessment and
- 31:12and the whole industry changed because
- 31:14we realized that we had a this was a
- 31:16serious thing and we could not continue
- 31:18like we were
- 31:19as an industry and as a government we
- 31:21were complacent and all kinds of things
- 31:23we learned so
- 31:25mass change came across the whole
- 31:27country um and so
- 31:30gpu the owner of tmi tmi1 and tmi2 split
- 31:35the organizations into unit 1 restart
- 31:38and unit 2 unit 2 cleanup and they
- 31:40brought in all new people all new
- 31:42managers and the unit 1 was was the
- 31:45restart was totally changed so it was
- 31:47all new managers navy nuclear you know
- 31:49captains and admirals were brought in uh
- 31:52all the operators were retrained new
- 31:54operators are brought in it was a
- 31:55totally different corporation the name
- 31:57had changed the old metropolitan edison
- 31:59was gone i mean all the people who were
- 32:02who were really there before were pretty
- 32:03much gone uh certainly all the
- 32:05leadership was so the nrc went through
- 32:08basically a six-year process of of
- 32:10recertifying their operations uh you
- 32:14know would be safe training was checked
- 32:16and rechecked uh and all the lessons
- 32:18learned impo
- 32:20admiral rickover was asked to do a
- 32:22special review adam rickover was getting
- 32:24old at the time but adam rickov was
- 32:26still very very knowledgeable but he had
- 32:28his he had his own group of navy
- 32:30captains which were highly trained who
- 32:32went through the gpu plans uh with a
- 32:35fine-tooth comb as did the nrc so it was
- 32:38a totally different corporation uh
- 32:40totally different people totally
- 32:42different lessons learned and i think
- 32:44the proof of it is it was restarted it
- 32:46went on and operated very successfully
- 32:48for 32 years until 2019 when it went
- 32:52down due to economics
- 32:54of cheap natural gas maybe now people in
- 32:56pennsylvania might want to wish a little
- 32:58differently but nonetheless that's
- 32:59that's kind of what happened um but it
- 33:01worked very the plant worked very well
- 33:04but the accident in 1979 traumatized the
- 33:08people of central pennsylvania i mean
- 33:10that was the true
- 33:12sadness of what we the nuclear
- 33:15establishment did to the people now you
- 33:18may have excuses it wasn't our fault and
- 33:20you know but but it was we it happened
- 33:23uh so
- 33:24when tmi1
- 33:26wanted to be restarted in the early 80s
- 33:28there was a lot of people in central
- 33:30pennsylvania said never again i mean we
- 33:32were traumatized before we were
- 33:34threatened our children were threatened
- 33:36threatened
- 33:37and a lot of people were very vehement
- 33:39about it against it there were also
- 33:41people who were very supportive of it i
- 33:43think after it was running
- 33:45i think people calmed down most did a
- 33:47few people were still highly impacted by
- 33:50this as you could see from the show and
- 33:53still are
- 33:54they they
- 33:57were true victims of what the industry
- 34:00did to them and the press did to them
- 34:02and and in my view
- 34:04shows like the netflix are still doing
- 34:06to people okay of scaring scaring them i
- 34:09think inappropriately
- 34:11well so i was i was a i was a teenager
- 34:14at the time living i don't know maybe 90
- 34:16you know 90 to 100 miles south i can i
- 34:19can remember the eerie feeling in the
- 34:21days that followed and i think one of
- 34:23the the
- 34:24one of the things that one of the
- 34:26services that the show actually does
- 34:29is
- 34:30you know they go back through this rich
- 34:32detailed archival footage and they pull
- 34:34up the press conferences and you realize
- 34:36how colossal the communications failure
- 34:39was in the first few days i mean anybody
- 34:41who would you know you can't blame
- 34:43anybody for being worried about it
- 34:44because it just seemed as though
- 34:47uh you know nobody was in charge i mean
- 34:49is that you know
- 34:51did did you feel that eerie you know did
- 34:53you feel that eeriness too i mean what
- 34:55you know how did you perceive it
- 34:58you're perceiving it from an engineering
- 35:00standpoint but you know when you were
- 35:02there on site how did you you know
- 35:05give me some examples of of how you
- 35:07could sort of viscerally feel that your
- 35:09family was there right
- 35:11yeah i mean
- 35:12we moved there i mean originally when i
- 35:14was asked to go up there you know in
- 35:161980 they said well you can you can
- 35:18still live in maryland rather than
- 35:20suburban maryland outside of washington
- 35:22and and i said no i said if i could take
- 35:24this job i have to live there in the
- 35:26community i have to have a house my
- 35:28children my two young children then
- 35:30needed to go to local school and i
- 35:32needed to see the cooling towers from my
- 35:34house and they said well you could go do
- 35:36it so i did and i lived there and my
- 35:39wife was a childbirth
- 35:41nurse at the harrisburg hospital and and
- 35:43so i'm you know we were members in our
- 35:45church and knew all about uh how the
- 35:48people felt and they were truly all good
- 35:51people including the people who were on
- 35:53that on that netflix show the ladies who
- 35:55i knew quite well um you know these were
- 35:57all really good people but they were
- 36:01impacted severely psychologically by
- 36:04what
- 36:05the industry did to them uh so it was
- 36:08real
- 36:08and uh you know i
- 36:11and they would ask a lot of questions
- 36:13well if you lived here would you have
- 36:14left and i said if all the only news i
- 36:16had was what i was getting uh on the on
- 36:19the television i probably would have
- 36:20told my wife and kids to go uh you know
- 36:23but reality there's just two the reality
- 36:25people act like they believe and what
- 36:28you perceive and and when you get
- 36:30information that says
- 36:31it it's it's it's significant you react
- 36:34that way uh so uh it doesn't matter what
- 36:36reality is or isn't it's what you
- 36:38believe it is and and we
- 36:40that trauma was was significant uh what
- 36:44we did to the people of central
- 36:45pennsylvania and never again and i don't
- 36:48think it ever will be again because we
- 36:50changed so much in the in the ability to
- 36:53not only do a better technical job to
- 36:55vent any event like this but also if
- 36:58events happen how we communicate uh
- 37:01accurate information gets to the press
- 37:03um at the time
- 37:05you know the the press touchstone was
- 37:08the jane fonda china syndrome movie i
- 37:10mean that's what they could understand
- 37:12and that was the reference case that
- 37:14people used
- 37:15and people
- 37:16words like the word meltdown uh is a
- 37:19very difficult word for for me i would
- 37:21say as an engineer because what is that
- 37:23is that you know molten core going to
- 37:26china and and the area is devastated uh
- 37:28for 100 miles or is it what happened to
- 37:31tmi yes some fuel melted in it and it
- 37:34flowed inside you know inside the vessel
- 37:36here or there
- 37:37but not the consequences uh minimal
- 37:40minimal consequences from a biological
- 37:43radiological point of view now that the
- 37:46plant was ruined of course it's a
- 37:47billion dollar plant was destroyed so it
- 37:50was certainly a huge industrial accident
- 37:52but from a public health and safety
- 37:54point of view it was fairly minor
- 37:58and didn't really i mean ultimately
- 38:02i feel like the netflix show runners
- 38:05kind of buried the lead of the story
- 38:07right there's been so much advancement
- 38:09in nuclear safety since three mile
- 38:11island and because of three mile island
- 38:13and and obviously they were going for
- 38:16sort of a certain dramatic narrative
- 38:18here but you know do you think they
- 38:19missed an opportunity to set the record
- 38:21straight on the safety improvements
- 38:24oh absolutely i mean there there's so
- 38:26much that that the industry did and the
- 38:28government did as well uh post three
- 38:31mile island i mean it was actually it
- 38:33was a huge wake-up call for us all i
- 38:35mean we as overall we as a nation we
- 38:38were complacent about it those operators
- 38:40you know we're not appropriately trained
- 38:43to operate a bmw reactor but they were
- 38:46good people they were good operators uh
- 38:48but they were they were lost that day
- 38:50okay i mean when they were turning off
- 38:52the the uh safety injection pumps that
- 38:55our 1975 computer was turning on okay
- 38:59they turned it off i mean we never
- 39:02expected an operator to be a problem we
- 39:05always thought whatever uh happened in a
- 39:07reactor and of a design point of view
- 39:09the operators would be there to help you
- 39:11and to assist you uh in the situation
- 39:13your your engineering uh automation etc
- 39:16we never thought that they would
- 39:18actually turn pumps off because they
- 39:20misunderstood um you know the
- 39:22instruments that they they were seeing
- 39:24in their training so we learned all of
- 39:26this
- 39:28and you know the
- 39:29key thing i think was the adoption of
- 39:32the naval nuclear management culture uh
- 39:35the institute uh nuclear power
- 39:38operations you know you the industry uh
- 39:41uh you know they're harder on themselves
- 39:43than the nrc should be and that's a good
- 39:45thing so we the communications if
- 39:48something goes wrong a whole reporting
- 39:50system even very minor items unusual
- 39:53events are now reported there's
- 39:55communications between the state level
- 39:58and the local level and and the utility
- 40:00sites themselves so so much has changed
- 40:04that we learned and i think
- 40:06i was an early thing that was good for
- 40:09america okay in that uh the backup
- 40:12systems did work the containment work uh
- 40:15there was no um you know appreciable you
- 40:18know impact radiologically speaking on
- 40:21on the community
- 40:22economically speaking and the investment
- 40:24side it was pretty severe i mean
- 40:27metropolitan edison gpu nuclear they no
- 40:30longer exist those companies no longer
- 40:32exist uh through this whole thing so we
- 40:34learned a lot and we made america
- 40:36stronger we made us more protective
- 40:39productive and we made us safer so i
- 40:42think we learned our lessons uh and we
- 40:45moved on and i think the last you know
- 40:4740 years has shown
- 40:49the value and i'm hoping the next 40
- 40:51years will even be better
- 40:54so i'm going to kind of dip into the
- 40:56into the q a here because the questions
- 40:58of uh the questions have come in and
- 41:01there's one related to this part of the
- 41:02conversation so
- 41:04uh it goes like this i watch the
- 41:06miniseries how could how would the tmi
- 41:09accident
- 41:10be handled if it happened in 2022 how
- 41:13would you handle it from the nrc side if
- 41:16you were in charge of the event again or
- 41:18how you know what what procedures do any
- 41:20nrc have in place that weren't in place
- 41:22then maybe you can give us some of the
- 41:24just uh you know
- 41:27a contrast of what that would be like
- 41:30yeah i mean in the post tmi you know
- 41:32lessons learned both the industry and
- 41:34and the nrc uh communications and safety
- 41:38data are are key things we all we had
- 41:41was a phone line okay to the control
- 41:43room and would ask questions and you
- 41:45would never you know the people were
- 41:47busy trying to figure out what was going
- 41:49on so you could not get any information
- 41:52there was a whole data center the nrc
- 41:54changed its um you know incident
- 41:57response center completely to not just
- 41:59depending on a phone line or two
- 42:01they'd get actually data of safety
- 42:03parameters you'd get temperatures and
- 42:05pressures um
- 42:06all of that data that we just didn't
- 42:08have at that at that time so so the
- 42:11information flow is is tremendously
- 42:13different the operator training is
- 42:16completely different i mean there were
- 42:17very few simulators then as far as the
- 42:20training
- 42:21of the operators and the fundamentals of
- 42:24of understanding you know superheat
- 42:26steam and and things that were
- 42:29fundamental that the operators really
- 42:31didn't understand thermal response uh
- 42:33transients so it
- 42:36we're probably never going to get to
- 42:37there okay but if we did if we had some
- 42:40of it uh we have the data and the flow
- 42:43and their exercise their training and
- 42:46and doing doing uh
- 42:48responses and drills
- 42:50we're in a much better situation to be
- 42:52able to communicate externally
- 42:54the utility met ed at the time i had no
- 42:57ability to go into a press conference on
- 43:00what was happening the press people were
- 43:03monitoring the radio communications from
- 43:06the gpu
- 43:08monitors who were out taking samples so
- 43:10they would have real-time data as to
- 43:13what a radiation level might be whereas
- 43:15the
- 43:16jack irvine who was the vice president
- 43:18would go into a press conference he was
- 43:20maybe a half hour out of date but they
- 43:22would have it within a minute and they
- 43:23would say we just had a report the level
- 43:25went up or the level went down the level
- 43:27went sideways he couldn't respond
- 43:30because he didn't know and if he said
- 43:32something he was then quote lying so
- 43:34even though he was more right then he
- 43:37was wrong
- 43:38his credibility was zero okay
- 43:41uh and uh things like we did in nrc on
- 43:45the hydrogen bubble uh situation which
- 43:48happened you know later on um you know
- 43:51chairman henry would ask a what if
- 43:53question well what if the the hydrogen
- 43:56was explosive right
- 43:57a simple question but it got out of
- 44:00control and said well nrc is doing
- 44:03analyses of what might happen if it
- 44:04explodes and then people say what do you
- 44:06mean it could explode it couldn't
- 44:08explode okay because there was a
- 44:09hydrogen over pressure no oxygen but a
- 44:12simple question asked by you know a very
- 44:14good man and chairman henry was a very
- 44:16good man a very good engineer and
- 44:17scientist uh you know
- 44:19got out of control okay so i think today
- 44:23you know everybody is more sensitive we
- 44:25have all learned from this um just like
- 44:28we've learned from fukushima and all
- 44:30this so the nrc and the industry in
- 44:32america you know
- 44:34does watch its operating world much
- 44:36closer today and we had not before three
- 44:39mile island i mean there's especially
- 44:41there's a whole lot of things we should
- 44:43have known but we didn't know so the
- 44:46fundamentals were changed
- 44:49so i got another question um so
- 44:53like this it goes like this mr barrett
- 44:56looks irritated after some questions by
- 44:59the netflix interviewer
- 45:01did he know the purpose of the
- 45:03documentary beforehand or did he
- 45:05discover the tone of the interview
- 45:07during the interview
- 45:10the latter i mean i i'm
- 45:12i'm a complete novice when it comes to
- 45:15hollywood okay i don't know anything
- 45:17about it i'm kind of trusting uh i was a
- 45:20real eye-opener to me um netflix said
- 45:23they want to become more of a news
- 45:24organization and they wanted to know and
- 45:26i said okay i'll talk to you so i had
- 45:29several interviews with them you know
- 45:30off camera and none of this parks and
- 45:33none of this was ever mentioned um and
- 45:36they wanted to know about the accident
- 45:37and and so we started off i agreed to do
- 45:41uh i i checked with some other friends
- 45:43who that interviewed in pennsylvania and
- 45:46they said it was pretty straightforward
- 45:47and so i trusted them so i went and did
- 45:50this interview for the it was a three
- 45:52hour long interview for the first 45
- 45:54minutes it was pretty straightforward
- 45:56and then all of a sudden
- 45:59it went into
- 46:00you know when did you stop beating your
- 46:01spouse kind of questions
- 46:03so i knew this was not going to be good
- 46:06this was a setup
- 46:08and i had a choice you know fight or
- 46:10flight
- 46:10if i walked off the set they would say
- 46:12see the government refuses to answer
- 46:14questions uh or you fight and you try to
- 46:17you know go through it and try to say to
- 46:18say the whole story so it was another
- 46:21three hours of
- 46:22what terrible things did you do
- 46:25so they did a lot of editing of course
- 46:27and they would toward the i guess it was
- 46:29two and a half hours i was getting a
- 46:31little frustrated uh you know and bent
- 46:33it a little bit which i should not have
- 46:35done
- 46:36um you know they tried to get me to say
- 46:39things about the the ladies that were on
- 46:41the show
- 46:42uh did i know them i said yes i did i
- 46:44hadn't talked to them in decades of
- 46:46course um and you know to say something
- 46:49negative about them which i would not do
- 46:51these were these are good people they
- 46:53still are good people uh traumatized
- 46:55absolutely
- 46:56okay uh but nonetheless uh so they were
- 46:59trying to jazz it up so yeah i was
- 47:01ambushed um but you know that goes with
- 47:04life life isn't here all the time
- 47:07right
- 47:08well
- 47:09uh you know
- 47:11i think everyone in the nuclear
- 47:12professional community
- 47:14is grateful that you that you chose to
- 47:16fight instead of
- 47:18choose flight so um
- 47:20now i've got one back on a question
- 47:23related to the event itself you may or
- 47:25may not know the answer to it but uh
- 47:28it's i thought tmi management said to
- 47:32turn off the safety injection pumps
- 47:35shortly after o 800 not the operators
- 47:38the operators kept the pumps running
- 47:39does that uh you know
- 47:41do you recall that
- 47:44no i mean i don't think that's correct
- 47:46now i guess i'm not sure what the person
- 47:47means by management um the the shift
- 47:50supervisor and the main on the three
- 47:52operators in the control room made those
- 47:55decisions okay uh these were um navy
- 47:59operators uh they came out of the u.s
- 48:01navy and part of i think the problem was
- 48:04was a cultural one and uh let me explain
- 48:06a little bit
- 48:07the
- 48:08these folks
- 48:09um were trained for the bmw reactor but
- 48:12it wasn't the in-depth training that
- 48:14they really needed but they but their
- 48:16most of their experience was with a
- 48:18naval reactor which is a recirculating
- 48:20steam generator okay now a naval reactor
- 48:23uh as a as the recirculation has a lot
- 48:26of thermal inertia to it you know
- 48:27actually the analysis would be like
- 48:29you're driving a cadillac you turn the
- 48:31wheel and it kind of turns slowly this
- 48:33is a 1980s cadillac not a new one uh and
- 48:36um but the bmw reactor is a very
- 48:38responsive super heat you know not a lot
- 48:41of volume in the steam generator uh and
- 48:43and it behaves quite differently nice
- 48:45little like a ferrari you turn away a
- 48:47little bit that thing can be in a ditch
- 48:49and it can go very fast these operators
- 48:52were trained in something that navy
- 48:54operators remember never lose the bubble
- 48:56okay now this was the pressurizer you
- 48:59never lose the pressurizer bubble which
- 49:01controls the pressure in a pressurized
- 49:03water reactor which the navy ones all
- 49:05are you never lose the bubble if you
- 49:07were a trainee or an operator and you
- 49:09lost the bubble your career was ruined
- 49:11and you were laughed at by everybody in
- 49:13every bar for the rest of your life so
- 49:15you never ever lose the bubble
- 49:17these operators when they really foul
- 49:19was open
- 49:20they thought they lost the bubble and it
- 49:22was like the end of the world to lose
- 49:24the bubble okay so when the injection
- 49:27pumps went on they turned them off right
- 49:29there there was no
- 49:31vice president or senior manager or gary
- 49:34miller who was the site manager telling
- 49:36them now when the george clooner the
- 49:38first you know
- 49:40the green engineer
- 49:42tech guy came in you know that that had
- 49:44passed you know he asked so many sad
- 49:47things happened for example when one of
- 49:49when one of the engineers asked was is
- 49:52the black valve closed the answer was
- 49:54yes the black valve is closed what the
- 49:56operator didn't tell him was i just shut
- 49:58it five minutes ago
- 50:00but it it opened all for the last three
- 50:03hours right when they you know they
- 50:04basically
- 50:06so they had no idea what what they
- 50:08really did but there's no
- 50:10uh there was no cover-up as the thing
- 50:13implies at the end people told them well
- 50:15don't we knew that it melted um yeah i
- 50:18talked with those operators you know
- 50:20privately after and they were
- 50:21interrogated by the rogue oven you know
- 50:24investigation the chemin the president's
- 50:26chemistry commission which were in-depth
- 50:29reviews i didn't today the show implied
- 50:33these were white washes those were not
- 50:35white washes at all you can read those
- 50:37reports those were strong independent
- 50:39reports both of them but no there's no
- 50:42basis to that that i know of
- 50:43right right so so another another
- 50:46question so how much has your experience
- 50:49with tmi been applicable to the work
- 50:52that you've been doing at fukushima i
- 50:54mean i would assume to a certain extent
- 50:55it's the same are there any differences
- 50:57how has it helped you
- 51:00uh
- 51:01well i mean i i guess it helps but i
- 51:04don't understand the
- 51:06the
- 51:07public situation uh responding to the
- 51:10public and interfacing with the public
- 51:12in fukushima over the water and
- 51:13everything else is exactly the same as
- 51:15three mile island we had nine thousand
- 51:18tons of accident slightly tritiated
- 51:20water at three mile island we could not
- 51:22discharge into the susquehanna river
- 51:24technically you could but
- 51:26psychologically and social politically
- 51:28you could not so it was evaporated into
- 51:30the environment in the air so we had the
- 51:33same uh dealing with the social
- 51:35political aspects of it as they do in
- 51:39japan um the technical challenge in
- 51:42japan far exceeds that of three mile
- 51:45island i mean the buildings are shambled
- 51:47three melted cores the core is on the
- 51:49floor it's it's eaten down into the
- 51:52concrete um you know concrete through
- 51:54superheated steam has been you know
- 51:56blasted away with only rebar on the
- 51:58pedestal so it is the technologically it
- 52:01is a huge much bigger job to do we have
- 52:05to do it robotically we can't send
- 52:06people in we could put people in three
- 52:08mile island but and and so that's the
- 52:11difference
- 52:12the management challenges are almost the
- 52:14same um you know tepco like metropolitan
- 52:17edison was an operating utility they
- 52:19made electricity that's what they did um
- 52:22and you know this is a cleanup job this
- 52:24is like you know hanford tanks it's it's
- 52:27a different type of business
- 52:29so they have to work through getting
- 52:31their traditional you know reactor
- 52:34suppliers the sheep toshibas to apaches
- 52:39mitsubishis to work together into a
- 52:41cleanup team so the culture of of having
- 52:46nuclear safety culture a la naval
- 52:48reactors is is new to them uh so they
- 52:51are going through the same management
- 52:54transitions let me say to to change to
- 52:59a cleanup so that's the same so i think
- 53:02there's there's great similarities
- 53:04between tmi and fukushima uh and there's
- 53:07completely
- 53:08dissimilar things as far as certainly
- 53:10from technically uh fukushima is a much
- 53:12greater much bigger task um it's orders
- 53:16of magnitude
- 53:18so so we get back and you mentioned
- 53:20again in the context of the previous
- 53:22question but it's it's the
- 53:24socio-political challenges right those
- 53:26in many ways you know there's
- 53:28clearly a lot of similarities where the
- 53:30the
- 53:31you know when you look at the facts it's
- 53:34not as serious as how people would
- 53:36perceive what happened
- 53:38and and that's always a challenge with
- 53:39nuclear if there's one thing that
- 53:42you could you know help everyone
- 53:45understand about
- 53:46whether it's radiation or the operation
- 53:49of plants like as if there's
- 53:51one little bit of information that we
- 53:53truthful information that we could put
- 53:54in everyone's brain that would make it
- 53:56better what would it what would it be
- 53:58like
- 53:59all right so that's a that's a hard one
- 54:01um i mean i think we have to recognize
- 54:04we in the nuclear industry we have a a
- 54:07negative stigma of the nuclear bomb and
- 54:09we saw it in the pictures constantly of
- 54:11the that's kind of was our
- 54:14sad origin okay a weapon a weapon uh
- 54:17whereas we really are concentrated
- 54:20energy that's that's clean and the most
- 54:22concentrated form that we have uh to go
- 54:25forward and we have to recognize that uh
- 54:28we have to work in a democracy anyway
- 54:30which we are you know the people vote on
- 54:33what they believe uh and
- 54:35and that matters you know you know
- 54:37elections matter so we have to as we go
- 54:39through as a country has to make choices
- 54:41or it's energy for clean energy we have
- 54:44to
- 54:44address the safety and stigma issue uh
- 54:47as to how we are prepared for this uh i
- 54:50mean many times when i've spoken to
- 54:53in
- 54:53students university types uh you know i
- 54:56said no when cavemen uh discovered fire
- 54:59it was a great thing on our evolution uh
- 55:01as far as their cooking meet and keeping
- 55:03our our huts warm but it also could burn
- 55:05your hut down and it and it can and it
- 55:07hurts you so you have to respect it and
- 55:09you respect nuclear energy uh we need to
- 55:12have the appropriate systems for it um
- 55:15but recognize that people don't
- 55:16necessarily see it like we do and if you
- 55:19just do just the pure technical thing
- 55:21well don't worry about it that's
- 55:22perfectly low risk that's that's that's
- 55:24it and
- 55:26sort of
- 55:27dismiss it
- 55:28uh we're doing a disservice because the
- 55:31perception is critical i used i some
- 55:35when i was younger i used to think
- 55:36perception doesn't matter reality is all
- 55:38that matters the older i get you know
- 55:40perception matters sometimes almost as
- 55:43much as reality and if you look at uh
- 55:46you know what my grandkids will do with
- 55:47these internet things okay some of them
- 55:50almost live in an unrealistic world but
- 55:53some people can survive a long time in
- 55:55in virtual reality which is kind of sad
- 55:58but nonetheless that's our society
- 56:00somewhat so we need to be conscious of
- 56:03that
- 56:04going forward and and be more attentive
- 56:07and
- 56:08responsive to people's fundamental
- 56:11information needs
- 56:13as we
- 56:15promote as we should promote
- 56:17nuclear energy as a safe clean future uh
- 56:21as long as we don't get complacent about
- 56:23it and we're not
- 56:24in my view
- 56:25for our future for our great grandkids
- 56:28well i think like that that this
- 56:30conversation today has has
- 56:33has made a contribution to that effort
- 56:35as i as i mentioned in the beginning you
- 56:38know very much similar to your point um
- 56:40we live in an algorithm-driven world
- 56:43right netflix
- 56:44chooses the content that they provide
- 56:47based on
- 56:48a level of individual information about
- 56:51people's viewing habits
- 56:53that
- 56:54you know we didn't have even 10 or 15
- 56:56years ago and so uh you know there's in
- 56:59many ways a greater power to to scare
- 57:03people that want to be scared but
- 57:05there's also an opportunity thankfully
- 57:07through the internet to be able to
- 57:09always
- 57:11provide that additional information out
- 57:13there to let people make up their own
- 57:15minds and really lay it out for the for
- 57:18the historical record for anybody that's
- 57:20interested in in diving deeper in this
- 57:22topic so
- 57:24um with that i'm gonna uh thank you for
- 57:26participating today thank you for your
- 57:28service to the nuclear community over
- 57:30five decades
- 57:32and um and
- 57:34we you know look forward to having more
- 57:36conversations like this with you
- 57:38and and your colleagues down the line
- 57:41but in the meantime i want to thank
- 57:43everyone for joining us today uh we will
- 57:46make a recording of this available to
- 57:48members later on today and i think we
- 57:52will probably make this available to the
- 57:54public at a point at which we can get it
- 57:56into a form and put it on youtube so i
- 57:59would say for those that will be
- 58:00watching on youtube i'm going to do what
- 58:03everybody else does and say click the
- 58:05link below for more information but in
- 58:08the meantime thank you lake have a good
- 58:10rest of the week thank you everyone for
- 58:12joining us and we'll see you again soon
- 58:14thank you greg
- 58:16thank you
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