I Went Into a Nuclear Plant and It Changed How I Think About Radiation - Smarter Every Day 309

0:00 I'm about to show you a video of the moment when two nuclear

0:03 plant workers tell me how they really feel about the safety of their job.

0:07 I wish the whole public knew how safe what we really did was,

0:12 considering how dangerous what we're dealing with is.

0:16 You agree with that?

0:17 Yeah, absolutely.

0:18 I think nuclear power would be tenfold what it is today

0:22 if we had done a much better job of educating the public.

0:26 A lot of people come to me and ask me, what, is nuclear dangerous?

0:32 I'm like, the people that I know, they retire out,

0:35 they die of other natural causes, not related.

0:38 It's not cancer.

0:39 We don't have all these issues.

0:41 You'll hear a lot of propaganda sometimes outside of nuclear,

0:45 but it's just one of the...

0:47 Man, it's one of the safest claims that we ever did.

0:51 Because for the most part, it's a very low amount of dose.

0:54 Occupational dose is exceptionally low, right?

0:56 Yeah.

0:57 I mean, for example, we're talking right in the middle of the rem over here,

1:01 like a chest X-ray is 10 millirem, maybe.

1:04 [Destin] A single X-ray.

1:06 Single chest X-ray is like 10 millirem.

1:08 [D] Got it.

1:08 And I won't see that in a year, maybe.

1:10 It depends on what you do.

1:12 Some people will see more than

1:14 that, but Definitely not within one trip in McClane.

1:16 Right.

1:17 This is the second video in the Smatter Every Day Deep Dive series,

1:20 In the Nuclear Power.

1:21 I've always instinctively thought nuclear power was a good idea,

1:25 but now I'm trying to understand it at its core, pun intended.

1:28 And to do that, we're traveling all over

1:30 the country and meeting the people that know this stuff,

1:32 and I'm asking them the hard questions.

1:34 I'm so excited about this whole series,

1:37 and today's video is about radiation and how nuclear workers stay safe.

1:41 Nuclear is a loaded word.

1:43 It has an association with nuclear weapons, which is understandably scary.

1:48 There's other words like contamination and radiation.

1:52 If you don't understand what's going

1:53 on around the physics involved in these words, it can be quite frightening.

1:57 Those two men that I just showed you in the video,

1:59 they work around nuclear reactions every day,

2:01 and they've done it for decades, and they're not afraid.

2:05 It's clear to me that they have some understanding I don't have,

2:09 and I'm guessing you might not have that understanding either.

2:12 We are about to receive training to enter an active nuclear power plant.

2:16 At the end of this video, you and I are going to enter this nuclear power plant

2:20 into a special area of the plant that has both contamination and radiation.

2:25 The hope is that when we're armed with this new understanding,

2:28 we're going to be just as confident as these gentlemen are.

2:31 Let's go get Smarter Every Day and learn more about nuclear power.

2:39 In the first video, we went out to Idaho National Lab,

2:42 where we saw EBR-1, the World's first nuclear power plant.

2:46 That particular plant was a fast reactor plant that also bred new fuel.

2:51 That video laid the foundation for our understanding

2:54 on how neutrons drive nuclear reactions.

3:00 This is the second video in this series,

3:01 and today we're going to do something really cool.

3:04 We're going to go to Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant here in North Alabama.

3:08 This plant is a really big deal for my local area.

3:11 It's operated by TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority,

3:14 and it contributes power to the grid for houses

3:17 all over North Alabama and the surrounding area.

3:19 So after a long process to get permission to enter the plant,

3:22 I got a phone call that said, Hey,

3:24 you need to come out and do some training first.

3:26 I usually shoot smarter everyday videos alone, just me and a camera.

3:30 But every once in a while,

3:31 when something's very challenging, I ask my buddy George,

3:33 who helps me make these videos,

3:34 to tag along with me, and that's what we did today.

3:36 We went out to Browns Ferry for the training,

3:38 and George and I were talking about it.

3:40 We were expecting maybe an hour, something simple.

3:43 Okay, here we are, Browns Ferry, nuclear power plant.

3:46 We got to get trained on how to go into a nuclear plant.

3:49 This will be cool.

3:50 This is Bill Ball.

3:51 Bill was introduced to nuclear power at the plant where his dad worked.

3:54 He then went into the Navy with nuclear submarines,

3:56 and now he runs a team at Browns Ferry that's

3:59 in charge of making make sure the plant is operational.

4:01 This is my longtime buddy, Phillip.

4:03 We've known each other forever.

4:05 He's been on my phone for over a decade simply as Neutron because he

4:08 works at the nuclear plant and have always wanted to see what he does.

4:11 What are we doing today?

4:12 [Bill] Well, today we got to get you set up for a rad worker training,

4:15 essentially, is what it boils down to.

4:16 We got to test you.

4:17 We're going to train you and test you a bunch so we can get you some

4:19 dosimetry so we can get you in the plant to see what you want to see.

4:21 [D] Okay, so I've got to get one of these on, like a dosimeter?

4:23 [Bill] Yes, sir.

4:24 [D] Okay, cool.

4:25 Sounds good.

4:25 And you're going to do it?

4:27 [Philip] I'll be around.

4:29 [D] So Is Philip going to be my escort?

4:31 Is that how we're going to do it?

4:32 [B] I'm your escort right now.

4:33 Philip is going to help, too.

4:34 Us two will be getting you around the plant or around the training center.

4:38 [D] Okay, sounds great.

4:38 [B] These are badges.

4:39 These are for you.

4:40 Thank you.

4:41 So get you in and out of here.

4:42 I just need those back when we're done for the day, please.

4:45 [D] Bill really spearheaded getting us into the plant.

4:48 They both work in the instrumentation department at the plant,

4:50 and you'll get to know them a lot more as we go.

4:52 We made our way down to a classroom

4:53 where we were introduced to a guy named Roger,

4:55 who was in charge of our training.

4:57 [R] Give you all some CBT training today.

5:00 For your dress out before.

5:01 It's the prerequisite for your dress out.

5:03 I just want to talk about the radiation worker process,

5:06 checking in and all that stuff,

5:08 and explain the nuclear fission process and things like that to you, okay?

5:11 [D] Okay, sounds good.

5:12 [R] You guys pick a computer out here.

5:14 [D] Sweet.

5:15 [R] I got you.

5:16 [D] Are we actually going to dress out today?

5:18 No, I probably won't get to that today

5:20 because this training here will take between 4-6 hours.

5:22 [D] Okay.

5:22 [R] So we'll get that done today and then have you

5:24 a dress out class schedule for in the morning, first thing.

5:27 I've had the opportunity to visit some very incredible places.

5:30 And usually once you meet the security criteria and a certain

5:34 person signs your badge or whatever, you can go in.

5:36 It's not a big deal.

5:37 This was very, very different because I had

5:40 to take training and it wasn't just like,

5:43 oh, sit down and let us talk to you for a few minutes.

5:45 We're talking hours and hours and hours of computer-based training that we

5:50 had to go through in order to get access to this place.

5:53 And they gave us an exam.

5:55 We had to take an exam to make sure we could do it.

5:57 This was far more intense than I expected.

6:00 This was just day one of training.

6:02 So I didn't understand what I was getting into at all.

6:05 And that fascinated me.

6:06 It made me realize this is a different thing than anything I've ever done.

6:10 I learned so much in this training.

6:12 We even looked at the core of the reactor and how that works.

6:15 And there's one thing that stuck out with me in particular

6:17 that helped me understand radiation itself

6:19 and all the different ways radiation happens.

6:23 So I want to show you this, and we're going to run through it,

6:25 and then I'm going to show you it again one more time, okay?

6:28 So nuclear fission.

6:30 We talked about this in the first episode.

6:32 Uranium-235 splits into multiple atoms.

6:35 And when it does that, there's this release

6:38 of a tremendous amount of energy, right?

6:41 But we didn't really talk about the radiation that's released as well,

6:45 but that's also a thing.

6:46 So we have this event,

6:48 and we have these daughter products of uranium-235 splitting,

6:52 but we also have radiation.

6:55 And what they do in a nuclear plant

6:57 is they control the areas where this radiation happens,

7:00 and it's called the radiologically controlled area, the RCA.

7:05 In the RCA, there's multiple types of radiation

7:08 that can affect biological life and cells in your body,

7:11 and they control them in different ways.

7:13 Let's talk about the four types of radiation.

7:16 The first one I want to talk about is called alpha.

7:19 Alpha radiation happens when the components off these atoms fly off and you

7:25 get something that looks like the nucleus of a helium atom, right?

7:28 Two protons, two neutrons.

7:29 So it's really big.

7:30 Got to look excited with the model.

7:32 There's an extra neutron.

7:33 Pretend that's not there.

7:34 And it can fly off, but it's easy to stop.

7:36 It can be stopped by something as simple as paper.

7:39 So if this alpha radiation comes in contact with paper, it stops,

7:43 which is cool because This means we can use anything thicker

7:46 than paper to shield against alpha

7:48 particles in our radiologically controlled area.

7:51 The second type of radiation is called beta radiation.

7:54 Now, beta decay usually is like an electron or even a positron.

8:00 Okay, so these electrons fly off, but they can fly right through paper.

8:04 They go all the way, but plastic can stop them, right?

8:07 So you can't stop beta with paper.

8:09 You can stop it with plastic, though, which is why,

8:11 I think this is very interesting,

8:13 you'll see people in nuclear plants wearing safety glasses,

8:15 and it's not that they're trying to protect

8:18 from cutting things with a saw or anything like that.

8:20 They're literally wearing safety glasses because this plastic,

8:24 this polycarbonate right here, can stop beta radiation.

8:28 It's very interesting.

8:29 Beta It's bad to get in your body.

8:31 You don't want to ingest it.

8:32 You don't want it in your eyes, things like that.

8:35 So beta is something that you can stop with something as simple as plastic.

8:39 The third type of radiation that I want to look

8:41 at, I think is probably the most interesting to me, and that's gamma radiation.

8:46 Gamma radiation is not a particle.

8:48 It's a wave, a very high frequency wave.

8:51 It's higher frequency even than X-rays.

8:54 It can go through paper like it's nothing.

8:56 It can go through plastic, all the way through plastic.

8:59 It It goes all the way,

9:00 and you're typically going to want to stop Gamma with something like lead.

9:04 You know how when you go to the dentist and they

9:06 put this lead apron on you to stop the X-rays?

9:09 Well, Gamma is higher frequency than X-rays,

9:12 and it can penetrate things like X-rays, but even more energetic.

9:17 So it has to be stopped with something like lead.

9:20 Okay, so we have alpha, beta, gamma.

9:22 There's another one that's fascinating, and that is neutron radiation.

9:25 Do you remember in the first episode we talked about this little guy?

9:28 Wee, little fast neutron.

9:30 Well, neutron radiation comes off of this event, and they're very,

9:34 very fast, and they can go through all kinds of stuff.

9:37 They're going to go past your paper, past your plastic, even lead.

9:40 They usually have to be stopped by concrete,

9:44 specifically concrete that has a high water content.

9:47 An interesting thing about neutron radiation is

9:50 it interacts with hydrogen atoms quite a bit, and that slows it down.

9:55 And so if we had water, you could slow down neutrons with water.

9:59 And So the people that work in a radiologically controlled area,

10:03 they understand all the physics associated with Alpha,

10:06 Beta, Gamma, and Neutron radiation,

10:08 and they can control the environment by different types of shielding.

10:13 And I think that's fascinating.

10:14 So what I want to do real quick is I want to show you,

10:17 just with one still shot right here,

10:19 I want to show you where these different types of radiation stop.

10:23 Because when I took this training,

10:24 this is the visual that stuck in my mind, okay?

10:27 So for alpha radiation, it can be stopped by paper.

10:31 For beta radiation, it's going to be stopped

10:33 by plastic after it goes through that paper.

10:36 And for gamma radiation,

10:37 it can go straight through paper, straight through plastic.

10:40 It can be stopped by something like lead.

10:43 For neutron radiation, it interacts with hydrogen atoms,

10:47 and so it can be slowed down by water,

10:50 or in the absence of water, it can be stopped by something like concrete.

10:55 This is how radiation is controlled

10:57 in what's called the radiologically controlled area.

11:01 This is how they shield against that kinda stuff.

11:03 All of this describes radiation, which is a very different concept from another

11:08 word that's very similar in my mind, contamination.

11:11 These two things are different,

11:13 and Philip has a pretty interesting analogy to explain the difference.

11:17 Yeah, the crudest way that was explained to me,

11:21 but it stuck with me is if you imagine your dog makes a mess in the yard,

11:28 if you walk up to it, you can smell it.

11:31 It is affecting you, but you can walk away from it.

11:35 However, if you were to step in it and then you track it in the house,

11:40 now it is affecting all over the place.

11:43 You are contaminated and you're spreading contamination.

11:46 [D] Makes sense.

11:47 Okay, trust me on this.

11:48 I bought a plastic pile of dog poop to demonstrate

11:51 this, and then I realized this is an important concept,

11:54 and I want to learn this exactly once and never forget it.

11:58 So we're going all in.

11:59 All right, this This is my friend's dog, Duchess.

12:02 Duchess, come here.

12:03 Good girl.

12:04 All right, here we go.

12:06 Please forgive me for this analogy, but I think this is going to work.

12:11 I have a very complicated setup here.

12:13 I have multiple boards,

12:15 and we're about to learn about contamination versus radiation.

12:20 Okay, so I have some contamination right here, right?

12:24 This is contamination.

12:26 I don't like it.

12:27 I do not like this at all.

12:29 Notice how I take this glove off.

12:30 That's going to be important later.

12:32 So right now in this room,

12:34 there is a smell radiating from this dog poop right now.

12:39 It's awful.

12:40 I don't like it.

12:41 I'm a little sad of my life choices.

12:43 However, there's a smell coming off.

12:46 How do I know that?

12:47 How do I know that there's a smell happening that's unpleasant?

12:50 And the answer is, I have a nose.

12:54 And that nose is a detector that I'm using

12:56 to detect that smell that's radiating from dog poop, right?

13:01 But what about this radiation right here?

13:03 We have this unstable atom that has some radiation that's coming off of it.

13:09 It looks like it's Gamma.

13:11 How do we know where that is?

13:12 I don't have a detector on my body that can tell me that.

13:15 By the time I can feel it or anything, it's way too late, okay?

13:19 So radiation workers, or I guess nuclear workers is the proper term,

13:23 have a very special thing called a dosimeter.

13:26 This is a DAD, a digital alarming dosimeter.

13:29 And the way that my nose sends a signal to my brain that says,

13:32 Hey, something's bad, and it's probably poop, that isn't in my body.

13:37 But what this does is it makes a noise with a little speaker,

13:40 and I can hear that, and that tells me, Oh, I might be around radiation.

13:44 So This digital alarming dosimeter detects the radiation

13:49 coming away from those nuclear atoms, whatever that is.

13:53 Okay, so let's say that I want to do some

13:57 form of work in a nuclear plant in a special room.

14:00 I'm in this room and I want to go in here and do something.

14:04 Oh, but there's a problem.

14:05 I've got a pipe and there's water flowing in the pipe,

14:08 but there seems to be some type of radioactive

14:11 particles that have collected in the bottom of this valve.

14:15 Do you see that?

14:16 Okay, well, that's probably not a great place to go in there.

14:19 So how do I know if I can come in the room or not?

14:22 How do I know if it's safe for me to go in?

14:24 Let's just hide in the safe area first.

14:26 How do I know?

14:27 Well, let's think about it.

14:28 So if we have If we have different

14:31 types of radiation coming off of these isotopes,

14:35 then let's think about what we can do.

14:37 We have Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Neutron.

14:40 Well, we're not going to worry about Neutron

14:41 because that's mostly in the core of the reactor.

14:44 So let's don't think about that right now.

14:45 So Alpha stops at paper, beta stops at plastic.

14:48 So we don't have to worry about

14:49 them because they're contained in the steel pipe.

14:51 But think about this gamma.

14:52 This gamma could probably go through that steel pipe because

14:55 you need something heavy like lead to stop it, right?

14:57 So let's look at our little dog poop What can we do to prevent the smell?

15:02 Oh, here's the thing we could do.

15:04 We could put a little cover over the dog

15:07 poop so the smell could no longer get to us.

15:10 And since we know that lead stops gamma,

15:12 we could do what we talked about earlier, right?

15:15 We've got that lead blanket from the dentist office.

15:19 You remember that?

15:19 So is there a way we could wrap lead around this area

15:22 of the pipe that has contamination in it to protect us in the room?

15:26 And actually there is.

15:27 You can just wrap that entire pipe pipe with lead,

15:32 and suddenly it prevents Gamma from getting out

15:35 into the room and it protects the person.

15:37 So just like we were able to shield the dog poop to get over here,

15:42 if we put lead over that radiation like that, then we

15:47 can prevent the Gamma from getting over here to where we are.

15:51 So that's a really interesting technique.

15:52 So that's the first way that a nuclear

15:55 worker can protect themselves in a room with contamination.

15:58 They can use shielding which is very interesting.

16:01 They are now shielded from that radiation.

16:03 Well, what's the other thing we do?

16:04 All right, let's go back and look at our turd analogy here.

16:06 So if I had to do some work around this dog poop and I got close,

16:10 the closer I get, the more uncomfortable I feel.

16:13 And you can see it with the nose, even.

16:15 If I come in close, oh, man, it smells so bad.

16:18 I got to get away.

16:19 If I change my distance, then I can keep myself safe.

16:23 So I wouldn't want to do any work over here.

16:25 I would want to work here if I can control that, right?

16:28 So that's the second way that a nuclear worker can protect themselves

16:32 from radiation or contamination is keeping your distance from the source, okay?

16:37 So we got shielding and distance.

16:39 And what's the third thing we would do?

16:41 If I had to work around that dog poop right there,

16:44 man, it smells bad in this room.

16:46 I would want to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

16:49 So that's another thing we can do.

16:50 We can just go over, do our work, and get out of there really fast.

16:54 So that's fine.

16:54 I'm going to do it again.

16:55 Get in there, get out.

16:57 That's called time.

16:59 So shielding Shielding distance time.

17:02 Those are the three tools that nuclear

17:04 workers have to protect themselves from radiation.

17:07 And this actually has a name.

17:09 It's a program that's called,

17:11 We want to keep our radiation exposure as low as reasonably achievable.

17:17 And they call that inside the plant, they call that the ALARA program.

17:21 So basically, nuclear workers want

17:23 to limit their exposure by applying shielding, keeping their distance,

17:28 and limiting the amount that they are around any nuclear source,

17:33 which I think is really interesting.

17:35 And if you think about it, that works with the way things work here.

17:39 Man, I just want to get out of this room.

17:40 But, oh, no.

17:42 Okay.

17:43 Oh, goodness.

17:44 This is a big deal.

17:47 So we no longer just have to think about the radiation.

17:52 We now have contamination because that water was

17:55 in that pipe where those radioactive particles were,

17:58 and now it's dripped on the floor.

18:02 So if we have to do any work in there, this could happen.

18:05 We could walk over here, we could do our work, but on our way out,

18:09 there's a very high likelihood that we might actually track that stuff out.

18:15 And because it was from that pipe with the particles in it,

18:18 we could spread that contamination.

18:19 This is a big deal, and we have to think about what to do here.

18:23 We need to call somebody.

18:24 So that's what happens in a nuclear plant.

18:27 If there's a spill or anything like that, biggest of deals,

18:30 you have to deal with it,

18:31 and you have to deal with it in a very intelligent way.

18:33 So you call these special people.

18:35 They come out with special meters, and they check everything,

18:38 and they have special equipment sometimes that they'll come,

18:40 and they'll clean everything up, and they'll make sure that everything's safe.

18:45 So that work can continue.

18:46 One of the things that's very important,

18:48 the whole area of the nuclear plant has an inner

18:51 area inside it that's called the radiologically controlled area.

18:55 I think I referenced that earlier.

18:57 This is a very special concept.

18:58 It's like a section of the plant that's contained,

19:02 and every individual source is located

19:04 and quantified for its radiological effects.

19:07 And so before you go into a plant, you have to check with the authorities,

19:12 and they tell you, okay, if you're going to that area,

19:14 there's a special valve over there that's hot,

19:16 so you need to keep your distance or limit your time around it.

19:20 This concept of the RCA is very,

19:23 very important for ALARA because that's how they control where everything is.

19:28 And so if there's a spill and it changes the area.

19:31 They document all that in the RCA documentation,

19:33 and you know where to go and what to do when you're there.

19:36 So these are the main concepts that I learned in that training,

19:40 and it was really good training, actually.

19:42 There was a lot of numbers that went along with it.

19:44 We got to learn how the core of the reactor worked, which I really enjoyed.

19:47 But the last thing is you have to take an exam.

19:50 Now, I'm an engineer.

19:51 I felt pretty confident about my ability to hang with all this stuff.

19:55 I think I get it.

19:56 George, however, theater major.

19:58 A little concerned about George's ability to get all this right,

20:00 so I was a little nervous for George.

20:03 Let's go see how he did.

20:03 [G] What did you get?

20:04 [R] Click on review.

20:05 [D] What do you mean what I get?

20:06 Don't even worry about it.

20:07 [G] Review your results.

20:08 [D] I got a 92.

20:09 What did you get?

20:10 [G] 96.

20:12 [D] You beat me.

20:13 [G] I got that one wrong too.

20:15 [D] We got it.

20:16 High five.

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22:23 We came back the next day to a warehouse

22:25 on site that housed more hands-on training, and we met Tim Lawson.

22:29 Tim is what's an RP instructor, Radiation Protection.

22:33 I learned that RP professionals in nuclear plants are very important.

22:37 They're like the watchdogs or the scouts that are constantly

22:40 looking around the plant to keep the workforce safe from radiation.

22:44 Tim briefed us on something called an RWP or Radiological Work Permit.

22:49 These are very, very important.

22:51 Anything that happens in the plant, you first have to get an RWP,

22:55 and you have to be given specific instructions about what you're going to do,

22:59 what your radiation limits are while you're there.

23:02 It's a very important guide that people use

23:05 anytime they enter the RCA or radiologically controlled area.

23:09 [Tim] Here we have an RWP, and this will be the RWP we'll be using

23:13 today going through out So it is all units,

23:18 reactor building, general area activities.

23:21 This RWP has medium radiological risk,

23:24 and the RWP set points are 80 millirem for the dose

23:29 alarm and 80 millirem per hour for the dose rate alarm.

23:33 This unit that the RWP says millirem,

23:36 I have no frame of reference for what that means at this point.

23:40 And a little bit later, Tim explained the scale of millirem.

23:45 I'll just let you listen to that now.

23:46 You see negligible effects before 50,000 millirem, 50,000 millirem.

23:54 The stations, the NRC's limit is 5,000 millirem,

24:00 but then the station lowers that to the maximum of 2,000 millirem.

24:05 So your threshold for any biological effects is 50,000 millirem,

24:12 and we are so far below that.

24:13 Have you ever seen a fundraiser where the town

24:16 will put a big thermometer out in town square,

24:18 and as people donate, it'll fill up the thermometer?

24:21 Well, this is how I think about the dosage

24:24 limits you're allowed working at a nuclear plant.

24:27 So Tim just said that 50,000 millirem is what's required

24:30 in order for biological effects to happen to your body, right?

24:33 Now, in this case, that's way in the sky.

24:36 That's off the board, okay?

24:38 I'm looking at 2000 millirem,

24:40 which is what's allowable at Browns Ferry nuclear power plant.

24:44 And this is how I think it works.

24:46 So first of all, as a human on Earth,

24:48 you are going to be exposed to radiation just as a function of being on Earth.

24:54 That's cosmic rays and stuff like that hitting you.

24:57 You're going to get radiation just in the background of your everyday life.

25:01 But because you are a nuclear worker that works at a nuclear plant,

25:04 and today you're going to get a radiological work permit, an RWP,

25:08 and you're going to read it and you're going to say, Oh, well,

25:10 today I can get 80 millirem, and my dose rate alarm is 80 millirem.

25:16 So what that means is I can go into the plant and I can do my work,

25:20 and that's my limit.

25:21 So let's say I went and I did my work and I got like 35 millirem, okay?

25:26 Well, I would just add that to my little thermometer

25:29 and Tomorrow you do it and you got maybe 40.

25:32 And so you do this over and over and over and it's cumulative.

25:36 The amount of radiation you're exposed to over the course of a year adds up.

25:41 But let's say tomorrow you are required to go work

25:43 in a different part of the plant that has a hotspot.

25:46 There's more radiation there, and you might get more radiation than typical.

25:50 Well, that's okay.

25:51 As long as the RWP allows it, you're allowed to get that dosage of radiation.

25:55 So this goes up, up, up, and they keep up with how much radiation each

26:00 individual worker receives over the course of their job.

26:04 Now, there's two ways that nuclear workers can measure this.

26:08 The first way is called a DAD, a digital alarming dosimeter.

26:13 Now, a DAD is pretty interesting.

26:15 It works like an old-school Pager that measures radiation.

26:19 Now, I'm assuming it measures Gamma.

26:21 I don't really know,

26:22 but it's pretty interesting how it works because it's doing two things.

26:26 It's measuring a rate, meaning on my RWP,

26:28 it says I can get 80 millirem per hour.

26:31 So basically, the rate at which the thermometer is going up,

26:35 that's what this measures.

26:36 There's another thing you can use,

26:37 and that's called the dosimeter of legal record.

26:41 Now, this one works a little differently.

26:43 A dosimeter of legal record looks like this.

26:46 It's like a little thing that you wear, like a name tag-looking thing.

26:50 And this thing measures the cumulative effects of being exposed to radiation.

26:55 So a DLR, basically how that works is you wear it

26:58 for three months And then after that or some unit of time,

27:02 you send it in to get measured, and they can look at it and they can say,

27:05 Oh, you got this much radiation in that time period.

27:08 I'm assuming it's like some film in there,

27:10 and they'll measure how much the film was exposed, something like that.

27:13 Not sure how it works.

27:14 But these are the two tools that you can use

27:16 to figure out how much radiation each worker is exposed to.

27:19 So a DAD, a digital alarming dosimeter that gives you the rate,

27:24 and you can use math to figure out

27:26 what the total dosage that you've received is,

27:28 and a DLR, a dosimeter of legal record.

27:30 That gets you just the totals over a certain period of time.

27:33 All this is meant to give you an ALARA compliance,

27:37 the as low as reasonably achievable goal.

27:40 So these are not amounts of radiation you receive on that RWP.

27:45 This is the upper limit.

27:46 You don't want to go over these numbers.

27:49 And a really good radiation worker,

27:51 somebody that works in a nuclear plant that's really good at their job,

27:54 they will keep this number as low as possible,

27:56 which I think is really interesting.

27:58 Now, I understand I understand all this, but what I don't have a feel for is,

28:03 what do these numbers mean?

28:04 Like 2,000 millirem?

28:05 How does that compare to other things?

28:07 So I asked him, how does this compare to other professions?

28:11 Like radiation techs or people that are working

28:14 in the medical field that are doing X-rays all day.

28:17 How does this nuclear program for ALARA,

28:20 how does that measure against other fields?

28:23 And his response was pretty funny.

28:25 [T] The medical field, that scares the hell out me.

28:28 What those people do with their isotopes is, man, they need the NRC on them.

28:35 But they're not regulated by the NRC, we are.

28:38 So both of my sons work here.

28:41 I feel like it is one of the...

28:42 Which is near and dear to me.

28:44 I feel like it is absolutely safe enough to where

28:47 my children can be here and have a very good career.

28:50 And it's a good place to be.

28:53 You're absolutely protected.

28:54 [D] After we finish our classwork,

28:56 it was time to head next door for hands-on training.

28:59 So the RP people in a nuclear plant, you're like the mother may I.

29:04 If I need to do something, I need to check to make sure that the area is safe,

29:08 you guys have the equipment, you know how to clear an area.

29:11 Is that correct?

29:12 Yeah, that's correct.

29:13 So what we'll do is we have a frequency of surveying every zone.

29:18 So like the Marines, we go first every time.

29:23 If it needs lighting in an area that's dark,

29:26 you go in with a headlamp on and your meter,

29:28 which tells you the radiation because you can't see it, smell it, or taste it.

29:32 So we go in with our meters, we go in in the dark, we monitor for conditions.

29:36 When we have those conditions,

29:38 we come out and we tell the person who's going to go in and hang the lights.

29:42 Hey, here's where the radiation is at, here's where the hazards

29:45 are at, and here's where you are allowed to go,

29:48 and here's where you need to avoid because these are

29:51 dangers which are going to exceed your radiation work permit.

29:55 It exceeds the limits which we allow.

29:57 And so what you're about to do is you're about

29:59 to test me on my my ability to follow procedures,

30:01 and I'm either going to pass or I'm going to fail, right?

30:04 That is correct.

30:05 Before we went into the mockup of the radiologically controlled area,

30:08 I had to learn how to get checked in with a software system that tracks

30:12 workers and their RWPs and the dosages as they enter and exit the RCA.

30:16 I got my two mockup dosimeters and reviewed our RWP.

30:20 [T] Click yes, you've acknowledged that you have read

30:22 and understand that when you do [D] dose alarm,

30:25 40 millirem, and so that's how much I can be exposed.

30:29 [T] No, that's much you can receive.

30:31 [D] That's how much I can receive, thank you.

30:33 And the maximum rate that this is going to alarm at is 80 millilrem an hour.

30:38 [T] Right.

30:39 So if you walk into 80 millilrem an hour,

30:41 it's going to alarm while you're standing in the 80 millirem an hour.

30:44 And as it accrues 10 millirem, 15 millirem, 20 millirem.

30:48 If it gets to 40, it's going to alarm, and it's not going to stop alarming,

30:52 and you're going to have to exit and see RP.

30:55 [D] Got it.

30:56 [T] To prevent that, we look at our dosimeter every

30:59 10 to 15 minutes while we're inside of a radiation area,

31:02 and then that's going to activate the dosimeter,

31:05 and it gives you your allowable set point.

31:08 So right now, the station allows you two rem, like we discussed,

31:13 but it's only going to give you 40 millirem for this single entry.

31:18 Even though you have nearly two rem,

31:20 you can still only pick up 40 millirem for this single entry.

31:23 [D] Tim then showed me how the turn styles work off of your dosimeter.

31:26 And then I got dressed out according to the specifications laid

31:28 out in the RWP with boots and gloves and a head covering.

31:32 Tim talked me through the security door and the airlock procedures,

31:35 and we headed into the mockup area,

31:36 and I was a little bit worried that I would forget stuff from the RWP.

31:39 But Tim reminded me that I have a little white trip ticket that the computer

31:42 gave me when I logged in that had all the stuff listed out for me.

31:45 [T] Your trip ticket tells you how much dose you

31:48 can accumulate and how much dose you can walk into.

31:52 So you have that on your trip ticket.

31:54 So the only thing you have to really have in your head

31:57 is what the conditions are inside of this contaminated area.

32:02 And as we discussed on the briefing, here's a survey map here.

32:05 So we see that just inside the step off pad is two millirem an hour here,

32:10 and I don't reach across the boundary.

32:12 It's two millilrem an hour right there.

32:13 It's five millirem right over here.

32:16 It's 8 to 10 over by the high radiation area on one side,

32:19 and it's 8 to 10 down that side of the high radiation area.

32:23 Noticing the boundary is continuous, and it's a continuous boundary so that no

32:26 one accidentally walks into an area while they're

32:29 just looking up at something else because

32:31 a lot of people walk in a plant inspecting,

32:33 so they have other things on their mind other than where the boundary is at.

32:37 So that's a continuous boundary.

32:38 So you're going in to check the following unit IDs.

32:42 So I've got a list of IDs that you're going to look at.

32:45 I would look at my dosimeter and make sure

32:46 it was turned on before I went into the area.

32:48 [D] Okay.

32:49 [T] Still, because we do have digital issues like the world does.

32:54 [D] Okay, the dosimeter is on.

32:55 When I first walked into the mockup, I was being tested, right?

32:58 I wasn't thinking about making a video.

33:00 But after the fact, I realized this is interesting,

33:03 and I asked if I could take my camera back in there,

33:05 and I filmed things from my perspective so you could see it.

33:09 So I edited this together so you could get an idea

33:11 of what I was looking at while Tim was showing me things.

33:15 So you'll get the idea.

33:16 But I apologize for not filming this the best.

33:18 All right.

33:20 [T] So you'll notice there's not a barrier here, as we discussed,

33:23 like the high radiation area, which is a yield sign, which is a caution.

33:26 So there's no barrier here.

33:28 And the only way in or out is across It's a step off pad.

33:30 Okay, this gets interesting pretty fast.

33:32 So this is the map of the area that I'm going to be operating in, right?

33:36 You can see we have a large contaminated area or the radiation area.

33:40 And up here in the corner, we have a high radiation area.

33:44 So what I'm supposed to do as I enter right

33:46 here is I go to the low dosage waiting area immediately.

33:51 I misread this map right off the get go,

33:53 and I immediately walked all the way across,

33:56 and I thought this was the low dosage waiting area right over here this pipe,

34:00 and I just hung out there, which was the wrong thing to do.

34:03 So yeah, that's how I started.

34:06 I started off wrong.

34:07 [T] So you're looking for...

34:09 Label number one is unit ID 2-pmp,

34:13 which is for pump, 2-pmp-075-0020-cs drain pump alpha.

34:24 [D] So I'm just using my eyes.

34:26 I'm seeing a pump over there.

34:28 I'm not going there yet.

34:29 I'm just trying map out where I'm going because I

34:31 want to be there for a minimum amount of time.

34:33 [T] Yes.

34:34 [D] I'm going to go over.

34:36 [T] You're just going to verify the ID.

34:38 [D] No, that's the RAD water pump.

34:40 [T] Hey, that wrench is not supposed to be there.

34:42 Can you grab that wrench?

34:43 [D] I will not grab that wrench.

34:45 That is very good!

34:46 That's exactly...

34:48 Now, why wouldn't you?

34:49 [D] Because that's the high radiation area, and my RP won't let me.

34:53 [T] Hey, would you straighten that hose, if you don't mind?

34:57 [D] That hose in the back there?

34:58 [T] Yes.

34:59 [D] Okay.

35:00 I'm thinking, I can't really get there without a stick or something.

35:04 [T] Right, yeah.

35:04 So you don't want to do it.

35:05 You don't want to cross the FMA barrier.

35:07 And a stick in the FME barrier, as we discussed, is foreign material exclusion.

35:11 So we don't- [D] Can't use a stick.

35:12 [T] Well, you want to be...

35:13 Yeah, you want to log and document everything

35:15 that goes into- [D] Every tool that passes the barrier.

35:18 [T] Correct.

35:18 [D] Okay.

35:19 Tim continued to ask me to do different

35:21 things and look at stuff in the environment,

35:23 and these were basically ways to distract me.

35:25 And so he would try to ask me

35:27 to do something that would break radiation protocol,

35:28 and he would if I would catch it.

35:30 And so it was fun.

35:32 When George and another TVA employee went through this exercise, I got to watch,

35:36 and you'll notice that they're waiting in the correct low dosage waiting area.

35:39 So there's that.

35:40 This training helped us piece together a lot of the information in our heads

35:44 into a simple set of behavior rules that would minimize our radiation exposure.

35:48 [T] So shielding.

35:49 So that's shielding.

35:51 [D] That's temporary shielding.

35:52 [T] That is temporary shielding, and that is lead.

35:54 So what if we had to do maintenance on that valve?

35:56 Could you remove that lead shielding?

36:00 [D] I'm assuming if I got permission in my RWP, but it's not in my RWP.

36:05 [T] It's not.

36:05 To remove lead shielding, RP would have to be present standing there,

36:09 because as you remove that shielding, the dose rates are going to increase.

36:13 [D] Okay, so you would have to monitor as I remove the shielding.

36:15 Correct.

36:16 RP would have to be here.

36:17 It would have to be as you remove it would be there.

36:19 That's correct.

36:19 [D] Tim had me follow the procedures for taking off my protective gear,

36:23 which had to be done in a very

36:25 specific way in order to minimize possible contamination.

36:29 Okay.

36:29 [T] Now, I'll note this.

36:31 When you pulled it off, it came out past the line here.

36:36 [D] Don't do that.

36:36 [T] If it had something on the bottom of it,

36:39 it would sling it onto the clean area.

36:41 Like I said, this is the most likely area

36:43 to get a clean area contamination because of the migration.

36:46 Like the dirt that will be on your shoe when it's sprung,

36:49 it'll spring out onto the clean air.

36:50 [D] So I just rubber band shot a potential hazard that way.

36:56 [T] So what I like to do is, and it's just a technique,

36:59 is as I undress, I face inward, and I pull everything off inward.

37:03 And then like a doctor would back up to a door.

37:07 [D] I finished taking off my protective gear and exited the radiation area,

37:10 and then he had me scan myself for possible contamination,

37:13 which again was supposed to be done in a very specific way,

37:16 which I remember from the written test,

37:18 but struggled to do it in terms of a practical application.

37:21 He then took me over and showed me how I would exit the RCA,

37:25 which entailed having a full body scan done.

37:27 And then, of course,

37:28 I checked back out with my dosimeter with the software system.

37:31 Obviously, I'd messed up the low dosage waiting area,

37:33 but it was time for Tim to give me his final feedback.

37:36 [T] I did have to coach you on the speed of what you were frisking.

37:38 So that was one thing.

37:40 I got you on a second attempt, though, once I told you you knew the speed.

37:43 So you didn't check your dosimeter while you were inside of the area.

37:47 Oh, that's So you didn't look at it.

37:48 [D] That's a big deal.

37:49 [T] Well, it's the first indicator that dose

37:51 rates are not what you expect them to be.

37:53 You did a perfect job on Dressout.

37:55 You used all the tools that were available to you.

37:58 I mean, your dose your bank account for your life, and you kept it ALARA.

38:03 [D] I was so distracted by the task.

38:06 [T] Sure.

38:07 [D] I didn't think about the radiation.

38:09 I was thinking about it because of the map.

38:11 I was seeing the map in my head,

38:12 but I wasn't thinking about what I was actually receiving at the moment.

38:15 [T] That's a great point for why

38:18 radiation protection concentrates solely on radiation protection.

38:22 Just like security, when they're walking around the plant,

38:25 they're looking for guilty people.

38:27 They're looking for holes in the system.

38:28 They're not thinking radiation.

38:30 Maintenance guys, they're looking for leaks and steam, and they're wondering,

38:34 why is that line hot when it shouldn't be hot?

38:37 That's their focus.

38:38 Our focus is strictly radiation.

38:40 [D] Well, yeah.

38:40 Well, that was a great real-world scenario.

38:42 I really appreciate the time.

38:43 Thank you so much for teaching me.

38:44 [T] Absolutely.

38:44 You're You did a good job.

38:45 Now, when I submit this paper, you will be fully qualified, okay?

38:49 [D] Okay, we are now certified.

38:51 We have moved from knowledge about nuclear plants to understanding.

38:55 We're about to go into the plant, and Bill is going to say a lot of things as he

38:59 takes us in, but you now know what these terms mean.

39:02 So listen to what he says and see if you know what's going on.

39:05 [BILL] All right, so here's what we're going to do.

39:06 We're going to go in the RCA.

39:08 You're going to put your DAD on here.

39:10 Phil will go in last.

39:11 Just make sure you're all good.

39:12 You get the green light and we'll go in.

39:15 Okay.

39:16 Now you got your hard hat, safety glasses,

39:19 hearing protection, DOR, and your DAD, right?

39:22 [D] Yes, sir.

39:22 Good to go.

39:24 Great.

39:27 Currently, I have zero Milliram.

39:36 [B] Okay, so what I'm about to take

39:37 you into is the secondary containment area, right?

39:39 You'll notice that there's some locked

39:41 doors and everything like water tight doors.

39:43 We do this intentionally because this is

39:45 our absolute last means if something bad happened, that's where we keep it all.

39:48 We keep this area at a negative pressure just to make sure we

39:51 keep all the containment products inside secondary

39:54 containment if something were to have happened.

40:07 We're going to walk up to the elevator through

40:09 the operating spaces because there's less traffic over this way.

40:12 [PHIL] Before we go any farther,

40:14 when you see the floor drains, don't step on those.

40:18 They're a lot of times contaminated.

40:19 [D] Okay so be looking for floor drains.

40:33 Can you believe this?

40:34 We're in a nuclear plant as a part of the nuclear power deep dive series.

40:38 I am so incredibly excited.

40:41 I'm going to show you something.

40:42 It doesn't seem like it could be real.

40:45 It's real.

40:45 This is where we're going in the next video.

40:48 We're going to go over an open reactor core.

40:52 As they refuel it, you're going to be right

40:55 there on a bridge on top of this thing,

40:57 and we're going to get to look down into the reactor core.

41:00 It is so incredibly fascinating.

41:03 Now that we understand the radiation and how contamination works,

41:07 you're going to understand what it's like to walk through the plant,

41:10 and we're going to see how that reactor works, and we're going to understand it.

41:14 It's so fascinating.

41:16 So a big thanks to everybody that supports Smarter Every Day over at Patreon.

41:20 You make this happen.

41:22 So very excited about this.

41:23 If you would like to be notified when

41:25 the next video in the nuclear power series comes out,

41:28 I've got an email list You can go to smartereveryday.com

41:31 and just fill out the email list thing there,

41:33 and I will send you an email when the video comes out.

41:36 But we have so much to learn as a part of this series.

41:39 We still have so much to learn at Idaho National Labs.

41:43 There's so many things that go into making nuclear power happen,

41:47 and it's fascinating.

41:48 So I'm excited you're here with me because I'm grateful that I

41:51 get to learn this, and I get to learn it with you.

41:54 And that's really cool.

41:54 We get to do this together, and it's fun.

41:56 So big thanks to TVA and Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant for allowing us to do this.

42:02 I'm grateful.

42:03 I'm learning so much.

42:04 So yeah, consider subscribing to Smarter Every Day if you haven't done that.

42:08 And I'll see you on the next nuclear power deep dive video.

42:12 That's it.

42:13 I'm Destin.

42:14 You're getting Smarter Every Day.

42:15 Have a good one.

42:16 Bye.