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Heroism Is Part of a Nuclear Worker's Job

Posted by Soulskill on from the especially-when-they-get-super-powers dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "In 1988, Michael Friedlander was a newly minted shift technical adviser at a nuclear power plant near the Gulf Coast when Hurricane Gilbert, a Category 5 storm, was bearing down on the plant. They received word that all workers should leave except for critical plant personnel, and there was never a question: 'my team and I would stay, regardless of what happened.' 'The situation facing the 50 workers left at Fukushima is a nuclear operator's worst nightmare,' writes Friedlander. 'But the knowledge that a nuclear crisis could occur, and that we might be the only people standing in the way of a meltdown, defines every aspect of an operator's life.' The field attracts a very particular kind of person, says Friedlander, and the typical employee is more like a cross between a jet pilot and a firefighter: highly trained to keep a technically complex system running, but also prepared to be the first and usually only line of defense in an emergency. 'We will likely hear numerous stories of heroism over the next several days, of plant operators struggling to keep water flowing into the reactors, breathing hard against their respirators under the dim rays of a handheld flashlight in the cold, dark recesses of a critically damaged nuclear plant, knowing that at any moment another hydrogen explosion could occur.'" The severity rating of the crisis has now been raised from 4 to 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, and Japan's Prime Minister called the situation "very grave."

27 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing but respect... by LordStormes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... for anybody who would put their lives on the line like this. The Japanese are better at this than anyone else on Earth - honor and duty above all else. I take my hat off to everybody within that radius still fighting to protect their countrymen.

    1. Re:Nothing but respect... by stabiesoft · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wish I had mod points. The way they are conducting themselves should make them proud. No looting, people sharing what little they have, really, amazing. And yes, I expect those operators at the plant will likely die before their time due to cancer or even worse. Beyond that is amazing stories of nurses in hospitals & nursing homes and even the stories of everyone pitching in at the shelters.

    2. Re:Nothing but respect... by scubamage · · Score: 5, Informative

      There have been hydrogen explosions in a plant that has uncooled, exposed nuclear waste directly next to the explosions. 30km away radiation levels are 10 times higher than normal. The workers have been evacuated more than twice due to obscenely high radiation levels. I think you need to do your research.

    3. Re:Nothing but respect... by Subliminalbits · · Score: 5, Informative

      I might be a little dramatic, but the increase in cancer occurrence is statistically noticeable at over 100 mSv/yr. The new limits in Japan are 250 mSv. The operators won't all get cancer and die, but staying has the potential to cost some operators a great deal many years down the road. It doesn't do any good to overstate the risk, but lets not sell them short either.

    4. Re:Nothing but respect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Exactly. 10 times higher than normal. Not 2 orders of magnitude, not 3. World average background radiation / year is 2.4 mSv. So effective yearly exposure at 10x normal is 24 mSv. Say these levels continue for another month, (1/12)*24 = 2 mSv.

      A chest x-ray is 7 mSv.

    5. Re:Nothing but respect... by chemicaldave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And yes, I expect those operators at the plant will likely die before their time due to cancer or even worse

      Spread FUD much? So far there have been no reports of workers getting sick from radioactive exposure. Sure they are getting some exposure but nothing that will cause a significant increase in cancer risk. If any one of those workers smokes then the smoking will likely be thousands of times more likely to be lethal than the "radeeayshun" will.

      Do YOU spread FUD much? Really? Thousands of time more likely to be lethal than radiation? You should have just said nothing, because actual numbers of exposure are hard to come by. Smoking might increase your risk for cancer over a long time, but a short dose of high radiation could kill you or significantly increase your risk. I'm not saying the original post isn't FUD.

      Just a check on wikipedia indicates smoking 1.5 packs per day only gives 15-30 mSv/yr. And the limit for Fukushima workers has been raised to 250 mSv/yr. And considering shorter doses can be lethal, due to the body's inability to repair damaged DNA quickly as opposed to over time, it should be concerning that some locations were receiving exposure of up to 10 mSv/hr.

      My point is, you just pulled that statistic out of your ass.

    6. Re:Nothing but respect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you know how high 10 times higher than normal is? Do you know what the human tolerance for radiation is? Do you know that we are exposed to cosmic background radiation every single day when you go outside, and that the radiation you are exposed to in an average airline flight is more than 10 times normal? I can't fucking stand the ignorance surrounding the most basic facts on radiation and health.

    7. Re:Nothing but respect... by RKThoadan · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://mitnse.com/ is one of the best sources for information.

    8. Re:Nothing but respect... by delvsional · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have a lot of respect for the workers at the plant who risk their health and work hard to prevent a disaster. But I also think it's an irresponsible policy to require this kind of heroism from people. I have only contempt for the people who ignored the IAEA warning about Japanese reactors a couple of years ago, and for the people who are still deciding to build new reactors near fault lines without sufficient safety precautions to withstand the worst earthquakes.

      The reactor should have been safe. Better able to withstand earthquake and tsunami, and more, better, and more reliable backup systems.

      The actual earthquake, Where the ground moved around, did no significant damage to the plant. It was the tsunami that destroyed the tanks for the diesel fuel for the emergency diesel generators (all 13 EDGs). This along with the loss of outside transmission losses meant no power to run the pumps for feedwater into the reactor vessel.

      Many newer plant have completely passive systems, fed by gravity and other things that will work without electricity. One thing you have in an abundance after a nuclear accident is heat. some of the older plants and many reactors (especially in the navy) have pumps that run off of steam.

      the plant I speak of is a little different from theirs. It's a PWR, theirs was a BWR. Our Aux feed system (with three separate trains) runs off of aux feed. in the event of an accident the natural circulation of the primary would move that heat to the steam generators with or without pumps running. The aux feed system which can be run with or without electricity will provide feedwater to remove decay heat from the Reactor.

      There are Seismic considerations to everything we do as well. A similar earthquake and tsunami would not destroy our EDGs. Thus I doubt any resulting accident would be nearly as severe, our plant is 5 years newer

      with regard to them being required to stay, I doubt that anyone was required to stay. I know if there was an accident where I work, (even if it was as severe) there would be no question that I would stay. Along with many others. I was in the coast guard before this. I was a sea marshal for a short time. I was a firefighter, repair team member, damage control team member. Many others as well would see it as their duty to stay, even if the company didn't ask. I personally know people from here who have volunteered to go help the Japanese plants.

      --
      Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
    9. Re:Nothing but respect... by TheEyes · · Score: 3, Informative

      There have been hydrogen explosions in a plant that has uncooled, exposed nuclear waste directly next to the explosions. 30km away radiation levels are 10 times higher than normal. The workers have been evacuated more than twice due to obscenely high radiation levels. I think you need to do your research.

      1) The hydrogen explosions occurred outside the reinforced pressure vessels, where the nuclear fuel is. Essentially what happened was that the hydrogen was created because of the cooling failure; it was vented from the pressure vessels into the surrounding building, and since the building's own ventillation systems were nonfunctional the hydrogen basically blew the roof off. It was loud and impressive-looking, and will certainly be something safety engineers will look at in the future, but the hydrogen explosions themselves never threatened to cause a nuclear release in and of themselves, and have actually proven to be good because it provided a more direct way to deliver cooling water into the spent fuel pools.

      2) Yes, radiation levels were high (at one point they hit 500 milisievarts at one plant, 1/10 a lethal dose, which is really bad). As of today, radiation levels are down in the microsievarts range, which is less than you get from eating a few bananas. The "radiation cloud" barely contains any significant amount of radioactive material, probably so little that it will take specialized equipment to even detect any.

      3) At the same time, four trains were derailed as a result of the earthquake, one of which appears to have vanished without a trace. Tens of thousands of people are dead; many times that number are injured or missing. But you don't hear about that; all you hear about is the "evil nucular meltdown". If the media weren't hyped up on nuclear fearmongering, this would rightly be a story about how well nuclear safety engineers are doing: despite two disasters which were both literally ten times worse than they were ordered to prepare for, there has not been a single death, and little to no release of radioactive material (radiation yes, radioactive contamination for the most part no.)

    10. Re:Nothing but respect... by sulimma · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let me get your facts straight:

      > radiation levels were high (at one point they hit 500 milisievarts at one plant,
      You are aware, that the unit is "Sievert" not "sievart"?
      Are you also aware, that, that radiation levels are measured in Sievert per unit time (usually hours) and Sievert is a unit for the radiation dose?

      The levels at Fukushima are officially reported to have exceeded 1 Sievert per hour at certain times. This means you get the lethal dose in five hours.

      > there has not been a single death
      Except for the five dead workers and probably the two missing ones.

    11. Re:Nothing but respect... by greg_barton · · Score: 3, Informative

      I expect those operators at the plant will likely die before their time due to cancer or even worse

      My grandfather was a nuclear chemist at Oak Ridge National Labratory from 1948 to 1976. During that time he often worked with various highly radioactive materials including uranium and plutonium. He died at the ripe old age of 97 from heart failure.

      Radiation exposure does not necessarily mean slow death. In fact we have no scientific, verifiable knowledge of what low level radiation exposure does to us.

    12. Re:Nothing but respect... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's a nuclear facility on the Savannah River that's slightly larger than Rhode Island. It was quite active during the Cold War. I interviewed for a job there in about 1988, and met a local boy whose Daddy worked at the plant doing hot laundry. He told me "they took real good care of Momma when he passed," at age 44.

      Ionizing radiation is like bullets to a giant - lots and lots and lots of tiny bullets. If you're wearing a dosimeter, you're acknowledging that you're going into the line of fire.

      The Wrath of Kahn may have been a(n extremely) cheesy movie, but Spock captures the spirit of nuke facility workers everywhere - they are just as brave as any Jarhead that risks getting his limbs blown off by an IED, or stupid, hard to tell the difference most of the time, but when it hits the fan it doesn't matter - they all deserve respect for bravery.

    13. Re:Nothing but respect... by stjobe · · Score: 5, Informative

      250 mSv isn't a "new limit". The international limit for radiation exposure for nuclear workers is 20 mSv per year, averaged over five years, with a limit of 50 mSv in any one year, however for workers performing emergency services EPA guidance on dose limits is 100 mSv when "protecting valuable property" and 250 mSv when the activity is "life saving or protection of large populations."

      You can argue whether or not what they're doing is "life saving or protection of large populations", but saying it's a "new limit" is a bit disingenious. It's an internationally agreed limit that was in place well before this disaster.

      --
      "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    14. Re:Nothing but respect... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That plant could go Nova and wipe out Tokyo and you and certain other posters on Slashdot would still be claiming that

      1. The spread of Nuclear Fallout worldwide would be substantially less than the hysterical media predicted
      2. Like Hiroshima, Tokyo would not be rendered completely uninhabitable and could still be rebuilt, and moreover
      3. The fact that the plants lasted so long after a titanic earthquake and tsunami before burning brighter than a thousand suns is proof of just how safe nuclear power is!!

      I'm only being half facetious. There's a brigade of posters on this site for whom nuclear plants can do no wrong under no circumstances, and who throw up any and all flack and argument to avoid the plain truth; To wit: That this is a nuclear disaster of the most serious proportions, which should have been completely and totally avoidable; and that its occurrence is a damning indictment of the private nuclear power industry as a whole, both technically, professionally, and publicly.

      Go on about bananas all you like. The credibility of safe nuclear power has been(justifiably) shot by this ongoing debacle at the Fukushima plant, and no amount of flimsy excuses are going to rectify that. If you want nuclear power to have a future within the next three decades, it would be better to start by admitting mistakes and making apologies.

      We now return you to the wider and more significant humanitarian crisis in Japan.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    15. Re:Nothing but respect... by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While I agree with you that the Fukushima team deserves admiration and praise, I don't think the Japanese are automatically better at honor and duty than everyone else. That notion almost diminishes the Fukushima team's personal bravery by attributing it to something like cultural determinism.

      Consider the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, was caught falsifying nuclear safety tests at Fukushima in 2004. They falsified information again in 2007 after an earthquake at a different plant. Where was management's sense of duty then? It was clearly misplaced, and short-sighted. That history doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this incident; it is quite possible that management has been exemplary since then. If management hasn't been responsible, that wouldn't diminish the heroism of the team on site at Fukushima one bit. It would simply illustrate one of the common features of heroism: a hero often the guy who has to step up when somebody else screws up.

      Holding some people responsible for making a mistake doesn't mean respecting the people who deal with that mistake any less. That's important to remember, because people who screw up like to cover themselves with the glory that rightfully belongs to others. And somebody screwed up here. It may have been an unavoidable mistake (when we designed this 40 years ago we did the best we could but now we could do better). It could been something that somebody chose to ignore because it would be very unwelcome news (we knew we really shouldn't be running these ancient reactor designs in places like this). Or might be an omission due to not having enough review of how things were done (safety drills should have revealed the problem restoring axillary power to the cooling system).

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    16. Re:Nothing but respect... by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the plain truth; To wit: That this is a nuclear disaster of the most serious proportions, which should have been completely and totally avoidable; and that its occurrence is a damning indictment of the private nuclear power industry as a whole, both technically, professionally, and publicly.

      And this is what passes for "truth" in the reality you inhabit?

      "should have been completely and totally avoidable"? I sincerely hope you're not an engineer because you should turn in whatever credentials you have if you are. Complex systems and structures are designed to certain tolerances. When those tolerances are exceeded, failures are not only likely, they are the expected outcome. You're conveniently ignoring that this quake is the fifth largest earthquake in all recorded history, followed up by a massive tsunami, affecting a plant built in 1971 with technology designed in the 1960's. And thus far not a single person's death can be directly attributed to anything radioactive at all, while tens of thousands lie dead or dying all around the plant due to the aforementioned quake and tsunami. Thousands more will likely die of wounds and disease before this is all over without ever getting a single mSv from this incident. Yet this is a "damning indictment of the private nuclear power industry" by your standards.

      You might as well have said it's a damning indictment of seawall construction around the entire island nation of Japan! After all, if they'd only built hundreds of kilometers of seawall hundreds of meters high and hundreds of meters thick, designed to resist an earthquakes, supervolcanoes, and hypervelocity asteroid/comet impacts, nobody would be dead! That does leave out the odd attack by hyper-aggressive, advanced aliens bent on enslaving and/or using us as a source of food, but I didn't want to seem like I'm advocating over the top measures. End sarcasm.

      The point is that everything can only be built so strong, and engineers can only anticipate so many different permutations. That does not mean you abandon doing anything where you can't engineer out 100% of the danger. If that were the case, we'd never have emerged from caves in the first place. Oh, wait...what about cave in's? Gosh, this whole "life" thing is kinda dangerous just existing, isn't it?

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  2. It's not the same 50 people every day by sandytaru · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They said they are rotating out workers once they reach "maximum lifetime exposure" of 100-250 mili-servients. Most workers are only staying for 24 hours before they are "retired" out and a fresh person brought in to replace them.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  3. Doses worry me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I understood things correctly the Japanese authorities now allow radiation doses up to 250mSv for the workers.

    To put this in perspective, natural background radiation is aproximately 1-3 mSv per year , while at 10.000mSv death is to be expected.
    Anything above 100mSv is definitively carcinogenic, and above 1000mSv you will see serious bone marrow damage.
    250mSv is probably not going to give you acute radiation sickness, but it certainly is not going to be good for you. In particular it will increase your risk for cancer.

  4. Anotherr honorable note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look at the people in line ups for food and supplies; calm and polite. No one shouting, shoving or being impatient.

  5. maybe we need a better way of making electricity? by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One that doesn't have a catastrophic failure mode? Maybe we should be putting our money into that rather than war machines and dick pills?

    Is there any business operation anywhere on the planet that isn't operated as a giant catastrofuck? I mean seriously, everywhere you look it seems like lying, corner-cutting, and profit-raping. Are there any responsbile operators out there?

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  6. Re:Stop the FUD. Be cause and research. by jspayne · · Score: 3, Informative
    I was actually impressed with his earlier article, until his true colors as a nuclear shill started to show. He made excellent points about the successes of the safety systems and layers of protection, but then pissed all his credibility away by saying:

    At Chernobyl, this actually happened inside the containment vessel and the resulting explosion ruptured the vessel, leading to a serious release of core radioactives – though this has had basically zero effect on the world in general nor even much impact on the area around Chernobyl.

    *faceplam*

    I'm pretty pro-nuke/anti-hysteria, but this is just irresponsible. If you want the straight-up story, go to the IAEA page or see the analysis by Ars.

  7. I've had enough of this wanking by curious.corn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hei folks, ever since this whole clusterfuck broke out I'm having a really hard time getting around the attitude of most online techie communities.

    Since the very first hours YC, Ars, TheReg and /. have started patting themselves on the back about this being a "job well done", bashing "media hysteria" and calling names against "tree huggers" and "anti-nukes activists". It's wrong, it's biased, it's annoying as hell. Besides, the amount of manipulation and spin is frankly unacceptable from these sources that one would hope they knew better.

    Listen all : it's mission accomplished when the crew back on deck - Apollo 13 style - not when the PR wish it was - Iraq invasion style.
    Let's not loose our cool, scientific, matter-of-fact and "it ain't finished yet" attitude; have we turned ourselves in our own version of FOX?! ...

    --
    Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
  8. Re:It raises the question ... by erroneus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Running *ANY* power plant requires that level of dedication to duty. Being a police officer or a fireman also requires that level of dedication to duty. Being an air traffic controller requires that level of dedication to duty.

    I am guessing "Rambo Tribble" has never served in the military and simply has no idea what sort of things require any level of dedication to duty or even what it means. But our "day to day lives" are actually vigilantly guarded by such people and they are frequently taken for granted.

    I have served in many roles that required such dedication to duty. Among them, service in the US Navy and several positions in IT infrastructure services. Without people in place to maintain things, civilization as we know it would collapse -- all aspects of our infrastructures require a LOT of people with a lot of dedication. Ever have a day when the trash people failed to pick up when scheduled? How about the occasions when sewage systems are stopped?

    To suggest that something shouldn't be done if it requires such "heroes" is to suggest that civilization itself should be reconsidered because it's not easy enough.

  9. Re:Stop the FUD. Be cause and research. by drolli · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well. I wonder. If the levels are that low as the guy thinks, why did the jp gov have to raise the allowed limit to 250mSv. I am sure the workers wear individual Dosimeters.

    Disclaimer for below: I am a physicist, but did not think about nuclear reaction for a long time and am no expert on them; If somebody could do the caclulations properly, and dismiss the below as completly improper, i am glad to hear:

    The cool down pond contains a MMol of radioactive substance, which should, depending on the composition (time of use) between 10^17 and 10^20 decays per second (i am no expert on this, therefore the large interval), which corresponds to kW to MW of emitted radiation (if the fuel pool evaporated 2000m^3 water in 1 week, the lower end may the right order of magnitude, corresponding to no active reaction going on), corresponding to emitted radiation in the oder of kW to 10s of kW. if we assume that .1% of this fuel is distributed in a 1000m^3 (e.g. the building), you have watts per second, and milliwatts and m^3. Assuming the worst part may be the inhaled alpha and beta radiators, and that you lung keeps 5liter, you end up with 5muW, corresponding roughly to 10mGray, or hundred mSv per hour (alpha and beta radiators), and you may want to add something for the gamma rays. If this would be thinned by a factor of 10, then you end up with the values reported close to the plants. So the problem would arise iff the fuel ponds catch fire and a significant amount if released into the atmosphere, you could end up with polluting 10^7-10^8m^3 into an unhealthy radiation level. That is .1(km)^3. So if the fuel storage evaporates over a week and the airflow is 1m/second you may emit a quite unhealthy smoke (that would be Tchernobyl). Lets hopefully assume that the burning would be slower and that the air stream would be thinned in a way that corresponds to size of the last plume when it arrived over tokyo, (100km^3 = 10^11m^3?), yielding 10^4W/10^11m^2, which is .1muW/second and m^3, corresonding to .3mW/m^3 and hour, so the order of magnitude will be .1-10mSv/Day if the fuel pool goes into fire. So the dosage over a week could definitely get into the harmful range, even at 300km away (you can check that estimation also vs. the measured radiation data at the reactor and lets say yokohama, which is roughly a ratio of 1/10000, meaning that if it would be 1Sv at the reactor we would reach the level calculated) if the wind conditions are awful and a lot of fuel burns/evaporates.

    When i heard the amount of fuel stored in their plant under the open air, and that the radiation prevented them from working, i decided to take the plane to okinawa from tokyo. If they manage to cool the fuel pool in reactor 4 reliably (which contains the more active rods), then i will fly back (about the rest, even about a meltdown in the containment i am less worried), but i am definitely not a fan of getting the yearly radiation dose for a nuclear plant worker within a week.

    So, no, no need to panic, but on the other hand if this would be too long over Tokyo, we can get new reliable Data on cancer caused byt radiation (in a 35Mio population, you can pick up change in rates on the order of a percent easily).

    As i said: i am no expert on this, and i lack the most important information (specific composition of the fuel rods). But since i lack it, i may be pessimistic.

  10. Nuclear power is better than the alternatives by alispguru · · Score: 4, Informative

    Go read the link in this comment:

    The earthquake and the follow-on tsunami caused serious problems with several reactors. The problems built up over hours and days, requiring a lot of effort to mitigate them.. They are going to be expensive to fix, and to date have killed tens of people.

    The earthquake also caused a dam to collapse, destroying 1800 houses in an essentially unstoppable catastrophe. Right now, nobody knows how many people were in those homes - if 1% of them were occupied, that dam has killed more people than all the reactors.

    People on slashdot favor nuclear power because a lot of them have an engineering mindset - everything we do has tradeoffs, and nuclear in general has the best ones for big sources of electricity.

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
  11. Re:Bring on the nuclear power fans by N1AK · · Score: 4, Informative

    The fact that a 40 year old plant, with technology two generations behind new reactors, has been hit by a magnitude 9 earthquake, and a tsunami has not caused a disaster (obviously, yet) is very reassuring.

    You talk about someone else being plain ignorant, in a post that is packed to the rafters with hyperbolic attempts to overstate the events so far. No one who knows anything about radiation is worried about radiation levels reaching 10x background. That's 0.05mSv per day, less than what you pick up every fortnight.

    I think using an ongoing event like this as a pro- or anti-nuclear is wrong. There will be lessons to learn later, and if it finishes without a disaster, I personally will be more confident in the safety of current and future nuclear plants.