Atomic Train and Emergency Exercise similarities in "realism"

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

While I thought that NBC did a decent job in changing the story 
line from high level waste to an atomic bomb, the issue of realism 
seems to be at the core of the recent controversy. In my opinion, 
we in the nuclear profession are just as guilty when it comes to 
logic and realism when dealing with nuclear issues that affect the 
public.

Having been involved in power reactor emergency exercises for 22 
years, I have seen the process of drills change significantly, post-
TMI. My primary function during emergency exercises was to "tail" 
the Emergency Control Officer, highest ranking utility individual 
during the exercise. Primarily, we interacted with the news media 
in the ENC (Emergency News Center) and with the state, federal 
and local government agencies, dealing with public notifications 
and press releases. My job was to address the radiological 
conditions, forecasts and risk assessments.

Where I see the similarity in the way the public is entertained, is 
the same thing that happens in the emergency exercise. The drill 
scenarios generally are written  to impose significant radiological 
consequences, requiring the protective actions to be taken by the 
state representatives, etc. The scenarios are also written to prevent 
the plant reactor operators from taking steps that mitigate the 
exercise prematurely. If they come up with a logical solution, the 
drill proctors step in to disallow the action. The result, we have a lot 
more radiation being released from the plant, we have the public 
impacted where by evacuations are initiated, etc. So, whet's the 
problem? Simply stated, we have real media (newspaper, TV and 
radio who participate in the drill, and show their 20 second sound 
bites on the evening news. This causes several problems since 
when you are in an exercise, you play it as the conditions are real. 
The media sees this and they walk away with the impression that 
this is real, and more importantly, this CAN happen:

(1) Because the NRC requires certain functions to be tested, be it 
evacuation or an ingestion pathway scenario, the scenario drives 
certain things to happen in the plant.

(2) To obtain off-site dose high enough to the point that evacuations 
are required, in many cases, the releases are based on values that 
EXCEED core inventory.

(3) In reality, if there is an off-site release, it's usually small. 
However, in an exercise, I was tasked with explaining the 
radiological consequences, based on extremely high dose, both 
external and internal. Instead of addressing what is really the case, 
I have to deal with "nuclear drill fantasy" and try to talk about the 
potential medical consequences. Again, the media sees and hears 
this, and they believe that this is real!

(4) Redundant systems are required to fail, and the media sees 
this as realistic as well.

(5) When the media interviews one of the "players" the player,m 
such as myself, addresses the scenario, and in so doing, 
reinforces the public's interpretation of that they believe are the 
dangers of nuclear power. When we say in the interview that this is 
all play, and the scenario can't really happen (like the movie) that 
gets cut and is on the editing floor.

So, can we really be too upset with the entertainment community 
when we are just as guilty? In my opinion, we are MORE at fault for 
the public's perception, due to our silly exercises that do nothing 
more than test the imaginary, and foster a mis-representation of 
the facts.
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