WEBVTT - Nuclear Safety Isn't Just About Who Has the Codes 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.520 This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to. Here's 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:09.240 the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policy makers, 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:14.000 and performers, to hear their stories, what inspires their creations, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.720 what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.479 On March eleventh, two thousand eleven, an earthquake triggered a 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.600 tsunami that damaged the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.920 It was the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Today, five 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.120 years after the accident, Greenpeace estimates the nearly one hundred 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.159 thousand people still haven't returned home. My guest today, Gregory Yasco, 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.440 was the head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.879 the time. Not a job that anyone grows up planning 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.720 to be, I think. So when I got there, my 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.080 first impression was really that there's this tremendous cadre of 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:06.399 really dedicated, idealistic safety advocates who just want nothing more 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:08.280 than to make sure that nuclear power plants around the 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.040 country are safe. Are utility react utility reactors? That's right? 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.160 Which there are how many? Now? Uh, there are about 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.480 a hundred, down from one oh four one oh four, 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.760 that's right, And operating right now. There's about and the 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:26.000 four the close um which were Yankee for my Yankee. Uh. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.200 There's a plant in Florida, Crystal River, two reactors in California, 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.920 Santa No Frey, Kawani which is in Wisconsin. And then 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.000 a number of plants have recently announced that they're going 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.400 to shut down Pilgrim in Vermont, UH and Fitzpatrick which 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.560 is in upstate New York right now. Of the ones 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.120 that have closed, what's been stated in the press is 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:53.680 that they're closing for economic reasons, that the surge of 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:58.880 of natural gas and to some degree renewables have really 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.600 made nuke are very expensive. Correct. Yeah, it's really actually 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.120 a combination of two things. The plant in Florida and 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:09.080 the plants the two reactors in California actually closed because 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.480 of safety reasons. The when you think of a nucle 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.280 power plant usually you think of some big kind of 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.520 concrete dome that encases all the vital components of the reactor, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.440 that the actual reactor engine and all those things. Well, 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.600 in Florida, that plant they were doing some maintenance and 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.720 actually broke. It sounds a small word, but it was 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.840 a billion dollar or two billion dollar fixed that they 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.600 needed to do to to to fix this broken containment 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.000 dome and actually couldn't operate without it because it's a 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:43.760 it's a fundamental safe. They were doing maintenance because nucle 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.520 power plants have really not operated the way they were 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.400 supposed to. The parts have worn out earlier. And one 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:51.800 of the things that has worn out on these reactors 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.480 is these large components. They're bigger than a bus, and 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:57.119 so they had to replace some of these, and they've 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.320 done in a lot of reactors throughout the country and 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:01.880 actually get them out. They never had doors big enough 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.640 to get this stuff out because they were never intended 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:05.839 to get them out. So they had to actually cut 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:10.160 a hole in this giant containment, this concrete structure which 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.200 has walls that are ten ft thick or many many 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.760 feet thick, and when they cut this hole, they wound 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:22.240 up creating this crack that went essentially around the entire dome. 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.480 And they just were this possible thing that could happen exactly. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.079 But the thing that you know, in a in a 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.559 highly technical industry, in an industry that touts itself on 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.440 on precision, on precision, something that should never have thought 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:39.400 exactly uh now, because I don't want to, you know, 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.920 beat it to death about issues of safety. I mean, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.640 certainly in the post nine eleven world, the terrorism threat 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.920 has been thrown into the wheelbarrow of complaints against you know, 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:54.760 by anti nuclear reactor advocates. But prior to that, it 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:59.720 was about obviously storage spent fuel, and with other groups 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.280 that I worked with, it was about exposure to ambient 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:06.360 radiation in that field, and I was wondering when you 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.000 were there, what were the discussions about healthy levels of 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.160 exposure to ambient radiation near reactors. You know that that's 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:18.680 always a very controversial topic and it's it's very inconclusive. 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.360 It's hard to know really that when you're talking about 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.800 the very low levels of radiation that you get from 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.200 just ambient exposure to reactor, it's very hard to to 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.200 say one way or another that that's causing any impacts. 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.680 And we know from studies that have done to people 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:37.040 who survived, say the nuclear weapons that were detonated in Japan, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.120 we certainly know that at very high levels radiation is 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.279 clearly harmful. We know that it kind of middle levels, 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.840 we have very strong evidence that it causes harm. And 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.000 then when we get into this low area, it's just 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.919 very very hard to pinpoint how this impacts people. And 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.040 I would have people come into my office. There was 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:57.160 one group of families who lived in and I believe 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.520 it was in Illinois, and there was a clust of 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:06.760 children in that community. Uh. This was around Byron or Braidwood, 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:10.200 I believe, UM it's a little bit further inland into 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.880 the state. And it was a family very well meaning, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.400 very knowledgeable, and very very concerned about their children. And 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.160 I remember talking to them and we talked about this issue, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:21.760 and they believe that part of the reason for this 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.240 cancer cluster in this community was generally in young children, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.680 was that they were exposed to some kind of radiation 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.200 from the plant. And what I what I told them 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:32.839 and what I often tell people, there's a lot of 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:34.880 people in a lot of communities who work in nuclear 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.960 power plants who live near them, and we don't see 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.040 elevated cancer us. And they made a very important point 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.000 to me, and they said, but you know, those are adults. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.080 And one of the things that we're learning now more 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.120 and more is that children respond to radiation in very 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:53.440 different ways, so it's not conclusive one way or another. UM. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.040 And in the NRC when you were there or to 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.400 your knowledge your predecessors, did they want to have a 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.640 conclusion about that or did they try to side stuff? 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.160 You know, I actually tried to get an answer to that. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.240 The basis for most of what we know about how 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.400 radiation impacts people and how it essentially causes cancer is 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.840 from a study that was done in the nineties early nineties, 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.920 and I actually as chairman, I initiated an update of 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.559 that study. Who did that study and it was actually 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.599 done by the National Cancer Institute uh And I actually 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.520 called the head of the National Cancer in Student. I said, hey, 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:26.479 would you like to do this? And he said, no way, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.679 I don't want to touch that issue. It's it's too 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.680 too difficult, it's too inconclusive. And I said, you know, 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.120 we we pride ourselves as an agency and being up 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.000 to date and with the best possible information, So I'd 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.520 like an update of that study. And eventually we we 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.560 did some work and we got the National Academy of 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.480 Sciences to do a study um and so they started. 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.240 We got a lot of pressure. The industry was very 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.200 unhappy about it because they were worried it was going 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.119 to show something and they were worried it might show something, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:56.880 and in their mind it would it would be a 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.839 false positive, but nonetheless it would show something that they'd 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.240 have to respond to and deal with. And in my mind, 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.760 it was about finding out information. Unfortunately, actually, just about 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.600 a year or so ago, UM, the NRC decided to 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.480 cut that effort to update that study. And why, you know, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:18.160 they cited the usual concerns about time resources, which is 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.000 the one thing I learned working in Washington is that 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.600 whenever somebody cites resources as the reason to not do something, 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.040 it's usually another reason. What do you think the real 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.840 reason was? You know, I think it just comes down 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.800 to the fact that it's a very very difficult study 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.240 to do, and the industry continued to pressure them to 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.840 the point where they convinced them that it wasn't it 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.160 wasn't going to gain them any useful information. And I 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.280 think that's wrong. Even no information or no results, so 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.000 to speak, a result that says everything's fine would have 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.440 been useful. I just wanted, as a little primmer for 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.680 people to say, and you and you chime in, or 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.680 I'll stop for you to give your assessment. And this 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.240 is a very kind of a children's book version of 0:07:56.240 --> 0:08:01.840 this even that nuclear power was developed as a weapons system, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:03.840 some people turned around and said, wow, why don't we 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.240 run some pipes and boil some water here because we 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.480 have the superheated capacity and there's really no business to 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.640 be had and making just a couple of reactors here 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.320 and there to build bomb material. Uh, we're going to 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.480 have a source of energy. And you know the famous 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.480 quote too cheap to meter. They said, well, the commercial industry, 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.160 as you said, all this whole enterprise started with the 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:27.240 need to make nuclear weapons. And then essentially people realize, well, 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.200 we've got to do something else with the technology where 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.400 everybody across the world is going to build nuclear weapons, 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.880 so we got to get them kind of focused somewhere else, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.560 shift their their mindset a little bit to this commercial 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.480 nuclear power. And that took a long time to develop 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.920 because it was a risky technology and there were no 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.720 companies yet who were willing to kind of bet their 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.520 whole business on this risky technology. So you had to 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.200 have something called the Price Anderson Act. Price Anderson helped 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.160 facilitate them exactly. It provided a sense with the government 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.000 said you know what, if there's an accident, we're going 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.480 to cover the liability from that act, taxpayers are going 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.440 to cover the taxpayers essentially and or essentially we won't 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.960 we won't reimburse anybody for their damages, but you'll be 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.560 kept whole as a company. And so that once that 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.280 kind of came out of the risk for that company 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.440 that other than any other enterprise would have to bear. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.560 Exactly why do you think that they gave the price 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.240 as an exemption to that industry, You know, because I 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.880 think there wasn't There was a desire to develop this 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.040 technology and the government wanted to support it, and because 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.760 they also wanted to support it internationally. They wanted people 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.520 to take this technology. You know, you had to get 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:29.560 very much a situation where you had to have and 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.960 the have nots. You had that American companies wanted to 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.280 sell this technology abroad. Absolutely, we're developing a business. Exactly. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:36.760 We're not just sitting there saying we want to have 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.079 to nuclear technology as an example for you. We want 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.320 to have nuclear technology as an example of a product 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.960 we can sell. Exactly, it was an American technology at 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:46.880 that time, and you look around the world. I wanted 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.000 to grow a business, exactly. They want to grow a business, 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.000 and they wanted to divert away from nuclear weapons. So 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.559 they did what they needed to do, and Chrice Anderson 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.120 was a big piece of it. And and then you 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.839 had this, You had this Atomic Energy Commission, which had 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:03.640 this responsibility to build nuclear weapons, to build nuclear power plants, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.480 to regulate nuclear power plants, and all of that just 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.000 became too much. It was just an overload. And then 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.480 in the in the late or the early seventies, they 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.480 split it all off, and they split it all apart. 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.160 They took away the nuclear weapons work and they just 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.520 left the NRC to do the regulation. And so it's 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.839 supposed to just be the place that thanks nothing more 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.600 than safety. But also at the same time, you know, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.480 I was I worked with her in a stern Glass, 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.280 the father, if you will, of the Baby Tooth Study, 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.800 which he credits and his allies and supporters credit as 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.480 helping to leverage the nuclear test band, treating with Kennedy 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.800 in the sixties. And what stern Glass basically said was 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.600 that a daughter element of a nuclear reaction from nuclear 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:49.280 bombs and so forth in the atmosphere mimicked calcium in 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.200 the developing fetus, and so you would take a children's 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.959 first set of teeth when infant children lost their first 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.520 set of teeth. We could take them. And you saw 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.320 during a certain periods of time when there was a 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.440 lot of radiation in the air from from bombs, a spike, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.120 and when there was the Test Band treaty, it went down, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.480 and then when the nuclear reactors were being built in 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.720 the country, it went up again. And stern Glass said, 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:17.079 you know, ambient exposure is higher than the NRC or 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.440 the AC wants to admit. Then there was, of course 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.880 the story that was told that Nixon wanted to have 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.599 the option in his pocket to bomb Hanoi during the 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.920 Vietnam War, and as a preventative measure, because he didn't 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.840 want to be accused of poisoning his own citizenry, he 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.160 had the a e C raised the allowable exposure to 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.959 radiation months in advance of the planned bombing. I mean, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.000 the federal government has played a lot of games with 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.320 the American people about exposure to radiation. Is that a 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.640 fair statement. Yeah, I mean, I think in the early 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.800 stages of this industry, nobody really, nobody really understood this technology, 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.439 and into a large extent, people didn't understand the harmful 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.319 effects of radiation. I mean, it was really until we 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.720 dropped the nuclear weapons in Japan that people really understood. 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:02.760 I mean, of course, you can go see the archival 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.200 footage of people looking and watching nuclear weapons tests in 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.480 the Nevada Desert, and of course those tests were originally 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.440 done above ground, and then they realized, well, you know 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.000 what that's that Eventually they recognize that's causing radiation exposures 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.160 they I mean, there's the classic community that lives in 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.880 in uh In, Utah, the so called down winders and 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.080 who were exposed to radiation from the weapons test because 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:26.960 they would wait until the winds were not blowing towards 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.120 Las Vegas, but blowing in that direction. Um. So, you know, 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.280 there were a lot of things that were done. I 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.720 don't I don't necessarily trying to describe motives to what 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.880 people were doing and why they did them, but it 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:42.040 certainly was a technology that was new and that people 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.959 didn't fully understand. And in a lot of ways, that's 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.280 what makes we understand it pretty much well. And and 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.000 that's what in a lot of ways makes it so 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.440 tragic is that we we think we understand it better, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.840 but in some ways we don't. Um So, you look 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.520 at what happened in Japan just five years ago. UM, 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.760 here was a nuclear power land that was sitting on 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.559 the coast of Japan and there was a massive earthquake 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.199 and a tsunami and wiped out basically every safety system 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.640 and you had an accident that was spewing radiation into 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.280 the atmosphere for six months. And do you get updates 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.280 about the situation there now? I do, UM just periodically. 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.679 They encouraging, not really, UM, it's it's a it's just 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.880 a tragedy. It's it's gonna be a mess there for 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.679 decades to come. And there's really nothing. There's nothing you 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.800 can do. It's mother nature has kind of taken over. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.160 And as much as we like to think of humans 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.120 we're all powerful and we can control Mother Nature. At 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:38.920 this point, the physics is more powerful. Is going to 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.079 disperse a lot of radioactivity into the ocean for decades 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.360 and that's basically what's going to have a slow seeping 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.240 basis exactly. And there's there's really nothing that can be 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.440 done about that. And one of the things that people 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.600 who were long term members of this debate I said 0:13:55.760 --> 0:14:00.520 was the Department of Energy very cynically cited these plants 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.320 where there was as often as possible cross contamination from 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.200 chemical contamination, so you couldn't figure out who to blame 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.199 for any kind of cancer cluster or soft tissue anomalies 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.719 that were there. Oyster Creek had a lot of high 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.719 rate of cancer. They're higher for childhood cancer. It had 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:21.360 an autism cluster there. There was contamination there from sea 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:26.160 bagage and a union carbide, and a woman that was 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.520 a local advocate there prevailed upon a congressman to give 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.000 her discretionary funds that were in his budget as a 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.800 congressman to do some research there. And the moment she 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.000 obtained the funds, union card bite settles and then on 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:40.520 all the documents seal they don't want people to know 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:42.600 what's underground underground there. So you have a lot of 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.120 cross contamination there, and you have a lot of working 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.800 class people, people who really really rely on those jobs. 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.120 And some of the people I work with said that 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.320 the NRC and the and the Energy Department deliberately cited 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.080 these plants in places like that. Does that seem true 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:00.920 to you? You know, not really, um, I mean, I'm 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.080 just in your opinion. What would seem more to to 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.360 me is that the power company may have chosen to 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.040 do and and you know, I could see maybe reasons 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.200 why it may have been an industrial facility because ultimately 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.720 the sites were chosen by the power companies. The NRC 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.320 then has to approve the site and and and and 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.640 didn't work. That was the Yeah, they were chosen. They're 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.040 chosen by the power companies initially, um, and then again 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.800 the NRC approves it and does those things. So would 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.160 it surprise me if somebody had chosen a site that 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.480 had contamination that you know, was suited better to an 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.320 industrial facility, like a nuclear power plant than some something else. 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.080 Certainly not. I mean that would certainly make sense. And 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.600 rather than having to clean up you know, what is 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.920 a what is a potentially messy era, you build an 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:46.760 industrial facility over it and you don't have to deal 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.280 with that as much. So, UM, you know, I can 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.640 see where there's maybe some truth to those those legends, 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:56.200 in those myths. But responsible, Um, the Innescy's All plant 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.120 wasn't responsible for the site. I didn't know that. I 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.360 would have thought that the was controlling the sites themselves 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.600 as well. The sites were private, and that's why there 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.840 was that difficult transition period because you had this technology, 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.280 which was largely controlled by the government, and then they 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.080 were saying to the private sector, here, take it and 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.440 do something with it, make these power plants. And the 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:15.400 private sector said, we don't know anything about that, and 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.560 we don't want to bet our companies. So you know, 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:19.480 that's where you got prisonity, you got all these things. 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:21.400 So there was this push to kind of get the 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.600 private companies to do it and um and that was 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.240 the early legacy of of the of the industry. What 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.840 nuclear facility is laying on a piece of land right 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.840 now the most mimics Fukushima in your mind. We're flooding 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.800 on a massive scale. If some weather anomaly were to occur. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.520 Where's the Fukushima that could potentially happen in the US. 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.800 It's probably in the Midwest, plants along the Mississippi along 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:55.160 there's a handful Iowa. I actually went the summer of Fukshima. 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.920 I actually went to one of these plants in Nebraska. 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.520 What's it called called Fort Calhoun, And I'll never forget this. 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.879 I went in a privately owned by an energy privately 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.200 owned by a Nebraska utility, and the site was almost 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.840 completely inundated with water, with water and you had to 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.920 walk on an aluminum plank from kind of where your 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.840 bridge are a long bridge, a long bridge, very long bridge. 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.119 Because there was so much flooding, and what are they 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.000 saying there about it? Well, at the time, you know, 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.720 the NFC was monitoring it, and the flood levels were 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.160 not likely to get like another six or seven inches higher, 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.040 which is where the plant would have really been in 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.880 very serious trouble. But what happens in the plant when 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.439 when that happens, what happens, Well, everything the doors are 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.560 sealed and keep the water, to keep the water out. 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.040 Is it water tight? It is water tight up to 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.720 a certain level, and they have a level at which 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.520 they're designed to be water tight, and they were about 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.720 seven I think seven inches below um, the level at 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:56.760 which they were no longer water tight. Now seven inches 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.920 of water spread out over you know, the entire floodplane 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.920 the I guess around Missouri River is is a lot 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.240 of water. But nonetheless there was already a tremendous flooding there, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.439 so that was really close. And it actually it just 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.880 so happened that about a year before some really good 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.440 folks at the NRC had identified a problem at that 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.480 plant where they weren't actually watertight to the level that 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.199 they thought they were, and they identified this and they 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.000 made them fix it, and thankfully they had, because if not, 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.440 they would have been much much closer to that kind 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.560 of breaking point. Is it a densely populated area, I 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.160 would have mentioned it's not. It was near I believe 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.960 it's right outside of Omaha. Um so the plants not 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.359 that far from a population center. Is there a discussion, 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.840 I'm assuming there's a discussion. This is while you were 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.040 in charge. Was there a discussion about what steps need 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.679 to be taken. I'm assuming you can't raise the building. 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.040 How do you drop the water level? Yeah? You you 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.000 you shut down the plant. That's the first thing you do, 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:57.800 and I mean they had shut down. You do you 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.640 dig another floodplain somewhere. You know, there's really nothing Army, 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:03.720 there's nothing they can do. There's nothing you do with 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:08.120 the flood with the floodwaters keep rising, they keep rising, exactly. 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.280 The flooding was larger result of Army core dams, so 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.840 they control all this. It's actually fascinating. All this water 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.480 comes from like Montana and Wyoming, all these from the mountains, 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.280 from the mountains, and all the snow melts, and they 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.879 had a massive snowpack that year. And so all this 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.919 water comes through a series of dams that are controlled 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.719 by the Army Corps of Engineers, and they have limits 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.480 on how much water they let go for farming, for 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.359 industrial use, for agriculture, all these different things, and so 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.320 they control that to a certain extent. But if there's 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:41.800 so much water, they have to let the water go. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:44.679 And so they were letting water go, and it was 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:46.840 bringing the level of this river up, and it was, 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:48.639 you know, there they were guaranteed to us that they 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:52.159 weren't gonna let open up flood gates enough that it 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.119 could flood the site more, but nonetheless it was it 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.200 was a precarious situation. Where are you from Upstate New York, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.240 from Albany, you're from all. But what did your father do? 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.040 He was an industrial engineer, specifically, what kind of worked 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.560 he worked? He actually worked. I like to say, my 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.680 dad's is the history of the depleting manufacturing industry and 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.000 upstate New York. He started out in textiles um and 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.040 we lived up in Glen's Falls, which had a big 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.280 textile industry. He worked there for a while. He worked 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.760 in factories, he he designed assembly lines and figured out 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.560 how to move products through factories and u um, so 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.720 he I got kind of my engineering technical sense from him. 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.680 Are you many siblings? Are you? How many? One sister? 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.600 As she an engineer too, she's a she's a she's 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.280 a musician. So she's a musical engineer. Someone had to 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.560 bring some soul. That's right, this dining room table. And then, uh, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.080 where did you go into crowd Cornell University? And where'd 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.480 you go to graduate school? Madison, Wisconsin? And what did 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:55.000