Radiation Hazard (The Stasis Stories #3) by Laurence Dahners

Author:Laurence Dahners [Dahners, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

***

Art Turpin’s nerves had settled. He’d been very much on edge when the meeting began. They might’ve been calling it a conference and review, but when the higher-ups of Vinargy, your energy company, and a bunch of people from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission got together to hold a “conference” on the accident at the nuclear plant where you were the general manager… it tended to make you feel as if you were on trial.

After all, it’d gone down on his watch. It might’ve been that the series of physical faults were unpredictable, and that all of them going wrong at the same time had been unlikely, and that he hadn’t been one of the personnel who’d performed poorly. But he’d been in charge of the plant and had directed his people’s training. He’d been the one who’d known Ralph Williams’ temper was problematic but hadn’t recognized it could cause a rookie like Jared Blank to freeze, act without thinking, and flee at the worst possible moment. He even felt somehow, as if Ace Berry’s coronary had been laid at his feet. You could argue that having an older, experienced man watching over a rookie was smart. However, “might not have been the best decision in view of the man’s age,” had been mentioned more than once.

Bunch of damned second guessers, he thought.

They hadn’t fired him yet though. They were moving on to what to do next.

He was supposed to present a plan for the remediation. The question was whether he should play it safe? Or should he tell them about Stade?

He’d prepared two presentations. One went over the history of the remediations carried out at other nuclear meltdowns from Three Mile Island, to Chernobyl, to Fukushima. It discussed problems and successes and proposed a path intended to replicate the successes while avoiding the failures. The reactor debris from Three Mile Island had eventually been shipped to Idaho, but he didn’t envision that the current political climate would allow such a maneuver. His conventional plan involved pouring additional concrete into the containment, to create a barrier isolating the number two reactor and limiting emissions. A sort of entombment in place somewhat like the Russians had resorted to with Chernobyl. Since most of the radioactivity was restricted by the existing containment, this wouldn’t be nearly as difficult, dangerous, and deadly as the entombment carried out as a last resort at Chernobyl.

When he arrived at the podium, he paused to look out over the people, mostly men, in the small auditorium. Now’s my chance to dazzle them with my brilliance or make it completely evident I’m not to be trusted. To outdraw and outshoot… or shoot myself in the foot. He took a breath, and thought, Go for it. He clicked on the icon for his second presentation and said, “Though I’ve prepared a conventional plan for dealing with the problems at reactor two, I’m not going to present it… Instead, I’m going to propose something radical.” He studied his audience. They didn’t look at all impressed.

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