Control Engineering

Peter Welander

Nuclear power plant: Life imitates cartoon?
October 31, 2007

In a story that sounds oddly like an episode from The Simpsons, an article in this morning's Chicago Tribune tells the story of two workers at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in northern Ohio, who were on trial for "concealing the worst corrosion found at a U.S. reactor."

The article says that prosecutors claim the men lied in 2001 to delay a shutdown for a safety inspection. When the inspection finally came, technicians found that an acid leak had nearly eaten through the 6 inch thick steel cap on top of the containment vessel. The case contends that the two misled NRC regulators and told them that the problem area had already been inspected, even though they knew otherwise.

Their defense said the two had no way of knowing about the problem and had nothing to gain from the shutdown delay. In an odd verdict, one man was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison but the other was acquitted.

In an earlier life, I worked on a project where the customer was an engineer who had spent many years as an NRC inspector. He was also a Simpsons fan but said that the portrayal of the power plant was a little too close to real life, as scary as that is. I try not to think about it.

Posted by Peter Welander on October 31, 2007 | Comments (0)