Re: Re[3]: HP Job Shortage

[bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Bob Flood)]

>     FPL's nuclear division formally announced today that they will 
>     eliminate ...

I've been through this same ritual myself, which is why I am no longer part
of the commercial reactor industry. As a result of the continuing downsizing
in the power reactor community, I found myself wondering about the impact on
emergency response programs.

As I observed at one place and suspect is true at others, staffing
reductions based on headcount objectives can have unanticipated (or
disregarded) consequences. Power reactors have emergency response
commitments to meet, commitments specified in 10CFR50, operating licenses,
reposnses to violarions, etc., and these commitments include the staffing
and operation of various facilities during a declared power plant emergency.
These facilities are designed to focus control of corrective and remedial
activities during the emergency, and must be able to operate 24 hours a day
for the duration of the event. In general, this means 2 teams working 12
hours shifts directing/coordinating the activities of the crews actually
performing the tasks to mitigate the dangers on the event.

Have nuclear utilities been keeping an eye on this emergency response
capability? At what point does a utility save so much payroll expense that
the emergency response capability no longer exists within the company? Are
these companies willing to ask themselves the hard questions that will lead
to learning whether the emergency response system has been effectively
disabled? Are they regulated by an agency that doesn't want to ask this
question because they don't want to deal with the answer? Remember the
Millstone article in Time magazine and the assessment of the current NRC
behavior, being less than rigorous at a time when the regulated utilities
are obsessed with cost-cutting.

I fear that some utilities appear to show adequate staffing in their
training records and phone lists, but close examination will find that the
same list of people appears for almost every emergency center position, or
that the list of people staffing one center is the same as other facilities
within the company, and that there really aren't enough qualified people
left to staff all required positions 24-h a day. And if a plant can manage
to staff the centers, does this leave the plant population asking "if they
are all in the centers, who's going to be out in the plant, face to face
with the malfunctioning equipment, to fix things?"

I am a supporter of nuclear power, and I am afraid of another nuclear plant
accident that could mean the end of the industry. I worry about a small
incident, a relatively minor system failure, leading into a larger event of
serious consequence because of a lack of resources available to deal with
the event. This is not just possible but, in my opinion, the most probable
scenario today for a significant power plant accident accident, significant
not in public health terms but for the survival of the industry. I don't
believe it can survive an important accident in the aftermath of TMI,
Chernobyl, and its own marginal financial condition.
Bob Flood
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.
(415) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu