🚀 go-pugleaf

        An Interview With Robert Pollard, Former N.R.C. Engineer
                           by Terry Teitelbaum

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            Robert  D.  Pollard,  51,  is  Senior  Nuclear   Safety
       Engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. He began his
       work there after his much-publicized  resignation  from  the
       Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1976.

            Pollard has an  extensive  background  in  the  nuclear
       field  which began in the Nuclear Navy where he first served
       as an electronics technician in the U.S.  Navy nuclear power
       program. He then became an instructor responsible for teach-
       ing naval  personnel  both  the  theoretical  and  practical
       aspects  of  operations,  maintenance, and repair of nuclear
       propulsion plants. Then,  from  February  1964  until  April
       1965,  he served as senior reactor operator, supervising the
       reactor control division of the  U.S.S.  Sargo,  a  nuclear-
       powered  submarine. He received his honorable discharge from
       the Navy in 1965.

            After  graduating  magna  cum   laude   in   electrical
       engineering  in  June  1969, Pollard was hired by the Atomic
       Energy Commission (AEC) as a technical expert.  While  work-
       ing  at  the  AEC,  he  attended  the Graduate School of the
       University of New Mexico at  Albuquerque  where  he  studied
       advanced  electrical and nuclear engineering. As the AEC was
       succeeded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission  (NRC),  Pol-
       lard  remained  on the staff and subsquently was promoted to
       the positions of reactor engineer and project manager.

            As a reactor engineer, Pollard was primarily  responsi-
       ble for anaylzing and evaluating the designs of reactor pro-
       tection systems, control systems, and  emergency  electrical
       power  systems.  After  his  promotion to project manager in
       September 1974, he became responsible for plannig and  coor-
       dinating  the  design and safety reviews of applications for
       licenses to construct and operate seven  commercial  nuclear
       power plants.

       In 1976, Robert Pollard resigned from the NRC "as  a  matter
       of  conscience"  when  he  realized  "the  agency  was  more
       interested in protecting the nuclear industry than  protect-
       ing  the  public."  Since then he has worked at the Union of
       Concerned Scientists where he continues to use his expertise
       in  nuclear  safety analysis. He played an instrumental role
       in forcing the Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant to shut  down
       due  to its potentially unsafe reactor vessel.  "Peace Move-
       ment Success  Stories  of  1991"  in  this  issue  for  more
       information on He shared this and other experiences with The
       Monthly Planet on December 3, 1991.

       The Monthly Planet: Can you tell me about your experience at
       the NRC and why you left?

       Robert Pollard: Basically, to oversimplify, the  sole  func-
       tion  of  the  experts on the NRC staff is supposed to be to
       review plant designs to determine if the safety requirements
       are  met.  The  way  the  process  works, is if you meet the
       safety requirements, you get a license and theoretically, if
       you  don't,  you  don't  get a license.  And what I had seen
       occurring was that when I had conclude that some  aspect  of
       the design met the regulations, no one questioned my techni-
       cal judgment or competence. But every time I  found  that  a
       plant didn't comply with the regulations, and they could not
       find  any  technical  reason  to  convince  me  that  I  was
       incorrect  in  my  judgment, they simply ignored my judgment
       and issued the license anyway.

       TT: Can you give me any specific examples of when this  hap-
       pened?

       RP: I was assigned to do the review of the  reactor  protec-
       tion systems on Millstone Unit Three, a plant in Connecticut
       that Northeast Utilities was  applying  for  a  construction
       permit  for.  I concluded there was insufficient information
       about the design of the plant to be able to reach a  conclu-
       sion  as to whether the regulations would be met or not. And
       when I relayed this conclusion to my supervisors, they  sim-
       ply  said  that  Millstone Unit Three was just like previous
       plants  that  had  been  issued  construction  permits.   My
       response  was  that  I  didn't  know  that, and I shouldn't,
       therefore, be asked to write the safety evaluation. And then
       they ordered me to simply approve the construction permit on
       the basis of Northeast Utility's claims that the  plant  was
       just  like  earlier licensed plants. Which of course avoided
       the whole question of whether the previously licensed plants
       should  of  been licensed anyway. So I simply did what I was
       told and wrote a report for inside  the  agency  saying  the
       plant was approved because the utility claimed the plant was
       like previously licensed plants.  But  of  course,  the  NRC
       could  not  use that report because it was clear on its face
       that no evaluation had been done and so other people in  the
       NRC  simply  copied  almost  verbatim the description of the
       plant from the license application and then added a sentence
       concluding that the design was acceptable.

       TT: That's criminal.

       RP: I wish it were true. That's one of the problems I see  -
       that  no  one  on the NRC staff gets prosecuted for criminal
       behavior, so of course there's no incentive to put up  fight
       when this kind of thing happens.

       TT: What was your job at the NRC?

       RP: When I first came there in 1969, I was hired  into  what
       they  called  an intern program which really wasn't designed
       for me. It was designed for someone who had just  come  from
       high  school  or  college  and  then  to  the agency.  I had
       already been in the Nuclear Navy for six years. After I  was
       hired,  they  sent  me to year of graduate school in nuclear
       engineering while they paid my  full  salary  and  expenses.
       When  I  returned in 1971, my job title was reactor engineer
       where I was assigned to review  the  electrical  portion  of
       plant  designs  - not only the electrical power systems, but
       also all the instrumentation systems which are used to moni-
       tor  the  plant, detect if an unsafe conditions is occurring
       and signal the emergency systems to start. Then in 1974,  in
       fall  around  November,  I was promoted to a position called
       licensing project manager.  Rather  than  doing  the  safety
       reviews  myself,  I  was in charge of supervising all of the
       various engineers  assigned  to  the  plant  I  was  project
       manager  of.  I was responsible for coordinating their input
       into the public version of safety evaluation report. I would
       then  be  the principal witness for the agency at any public
       hearing at which I would have to, of course, claim that  the
       plant met the safety regulations because legally, you cannot
       get a license unless you do. Of  course,  the  way  the  NRC
       review  process works is they really only do an audit of the
       design; they don't really review the whole  plant.  So  it's
       very  easy  to  write  a safety evaluation report addressing
       only those aspects of the plant design which meet the  regu-
       lations  and  don't  discuss  the  portions of the plant you
       either didn't review at all  orthe  portions  of  the  plant
       where  you have reviewed it and concluded it didn't meet the
       regulations. You could  just  omit  those  from  the  safety
       evaluation  reports  and  at least you wouldn't be guilty of
       committing a lie.  You'd only be lying by  omission.  That's
       what  led  me  to  resign. Before, when I could write safety
       evaluation reports honestly, at least  I  wasn't  placed  in
       position  of  having  to take the witness stand. Whoever did
       was simply ignoring the reports I had written. But  as  pro-
       ject manager I would have to take the witness stand, which I
       was scheduled to do in the case of Indian Point  Unit  Three
       which is plant on the Hudson River about 25 miles from Times
       Square. I had concluded that the plant  didn't  meet  safety
       requirements  and  so I resigned from the agency in February
       1976.

       Basically, I had come to a conclusion over a period  of  six
       and a half years that when there was a conflict between pro-
       tecting the public and protecting the financial interests of
       the  nuclear  industry,  unfortunately  too often the agency
       opts to protect the nuclear industry at the expense of  pub-
       lic  safety.   More  as a matter of conscience than anything
       else, I didn't want to be part of that. So  I  resigned  and
       came  to  the  Union  of Concerned Scientists in February of
       1976. I expected to stay here about a year and then  go  off
       and  start  some  other  career  in a more useful field than
       nuclear power. But I'm still here after 15 years. I'm  still
       trying to basically do the job I thought the NRC hired me to
       do - to force the NRC to obey its own safety requirements.

       TT: What's keeping you at the Union of Concerned  Scientists
       for so long?

       RP: I enjoy it. One of the main reasons I wanted to work for
       the  federal  government is I like the idea of being able to
       work directly for the public.  So, while I can't  do  it  at
       the NRC, I can still do it here.

       TT:  A  writer  for  the  New  York  Times  called  you  the
       industry's  most  technically  adept  opponent and that your
       work has caused toil and  tribulation  for  reactor  owners.
       What do you think of that?

       RP: There's no question about it. We've cost probably  every
       plant  in the country millions of dollars by causing them to
       address safety issues they otherwise wouldn't  have  had  to
       address.

       TT: Is there anyone else doing what your doing?

       RP: No, not in quite the same way.  Of  course  it's  under-
       standable that there aren't too many people who after study-
       ing in a field - I've been in this field since 1957  -  who,
       after  going  through all that training and schooling, would
       throw away a retirement plan and hope of surviving  economi-
       cally.  So there are other people who try to work on nuclear
       safety questions but I guess there's not that many  with  my
       background.

       But I feel like I get a lot of help. That's  also  encourag-
       ing.  I  get a lot of help from people in the nuclear indus-
       try. It's slowed down recently because there  are  too  many
       people  in  the  industry  who,  when they try and point out
       safety issues, they wind up losing their jobs. But for  many
       years,  a  lot of the work I started on came to my attention
       in a plain brown envelope arriving in the  mail.  People  in
       the  industry knew that I would understand the documents. So
       they  just  mailed  them  to  me  anonymously.  One  set  of
       documents for example - after about five years of litigation
       - forced the NRC to adopt new fire  protection  requirements
       for  all  the  plants. If you get a fire in a nuclear plant,
       that can cause a meltdown because it destroys the electrical
       cables for the protection systems.

       TT: So, you think there are people with  consciences  within
       the nuclear industry?

       RP: Yes, but not too many of them act on it. I don't see any
       difference  between  them and the engineers at NASA who were
       trying to point out the problems with the O rings and  their
       supervisors  ignored them, so they gave up.  There's no real
       benefits, that I can think of, of doing what I've done. From
       a  personal, economic view, there's no benefit. I gave up 12
       years toward a government pension, took a one  third  salary
       cut for the option of hoping we could get enough public con-
       tributions so we could keep the  organization  going.   It's
       not  something my wife particularly thought was a wise deci-
       sion. At that time our children were six  and  twelve  years
       old.

       TT: How does you wife feel about it now?

       RP: Well, I guess you can get used to  most  anything.  I've
       stopped  traveling as much as I used to. It's always a point
       of sadness that I've  missed  so  many  family  affairs  and
       birthdays and graduations. I was always off somewhere, some-
       times in Europe.

       TT: What are some of the worst things you've seen take place
       in the nuclear industry?

       RP: Some of the worst things I've seen is how the  NRC  just
       basically  flat out lies to the public and the Congress. One
       good example is one of the things that I did accomplish with
       my  resignation was inform the country and the Congress that
       the NRC had kept a secret list of  over  200  safety  issues
       that  they  didn't  have  any  answers  for.  While congress
       required them  to  report  annually  on  their  progress  on
       resolving  them, some of them remained on the books for more
       than a decade. One in particular comes to mind. One  of  the
       problems  we  have  is  if we lose all electrical power at a
       nuclear plant, we've got no way to prevent the  meltdown  of
       the  core. And so when the NRC, about two years ago, adopted
       a new requirement that plants will, someday, have to  modify
       their  design so they can withstand a total loss of electri-
       cal power for some period of time. And  then  when  the  NRC
       went  out to actually inspect the plants after the utilities
       had told the NRC what they were going to do about this prob-
       lem,  the  NRC  audited six or eight plants. What they found
       was the utilities had claimed  they  had  done  things  they
       hadn't  actually  done. Some utilities had done such bizarre
       things the NRC couldn't even believe it and they hadn't told
       them  about  them.  For  example, utilities were planning to
       totally abandon the main control room and try to control the
       plant from outside the control room if the plant lost power.
       This was so bizarre the NRC hadn't even thought of prohibit-
       ing  that.  So  anyway,  the  NRC  planned to issue what was
       called the generic letter. This time they were going to  ask
       the  utilities  to  once  again  tell the NRC what they were
       going to do about this problem of station black-out or  loss
       of all AC power. this time they were going to have to submit
       their filings under oath. Well, the nuclear industry's trade
       group  picked  up  the  cause and talked the NRC out of even
       sending that letter. It was a quite clear case that some  of
       the utilities had lied. And the NRC did nothing about it.

       TT: Which plants operating today alarm you the most?

       RP: I wish I could answer that question. If you had asked me
       that  question  in  1978  there's no way I would have picked
       Three Mile Island because it  was  a  brand  new  plant.  It
       sounds  facetious,  but  the most dangerous plant is the one
       that's going to have the next accident.  And  I  don't  know
       which one it is.

       TT: And you think that's likely to happen, soon?

       RP: Oh, clearly likely. Even the NRC agrees  with  that.  In
       their  August  1985  testimony  to Congress in response to a
       direct question, the NRC said, yes, there's about a 45  per-
       cent  chance  of  some  severe  core melt accident some U.S.
       plant in the next 20 years.

       TT: How accurate do you think that prediction is?

       RP: First of all, it's a startling admission. But  when  you
       look  at  the  actual  math behind that estimate, you attach
       what we call the uncertainty limits, the actual  probability
       could  be anywhere between six percent and 99 percent, which
       is the equivalent of saying  we  don't  have  any  idea.  It
       either will happen or it won't happen. We don't know. That's
       the amazing part about it.

       The fundamental thing that people have a hard  time  believ-
       ing,  but  it's true, is that the NRC is not there to assure
       the plants are safe. At best, the NRC will assure the plants
       meet the safety requirements. But the safety requirements do
       not require an adequate emergency evacuation plan. The regu-
       lations  do  not require protection against a reactor vessel
       rupturing which is the issue we raised at Yankee  Rowe.  The
       only  reason we got Yankee Rowe shut down is we were able to
       prove that the chance of that happening was higher than  the
       NRC  deems  acceptable. The point is, even if you meet every
       single NRC requirement, you can still have an accident which
       results in the release of quantities of radiation comparable
       to Chernobyl.

       TT: Do you think the NRC is reformable?

       RP: Is the United States Congress reformable?  That's  where
       the   fundamental  problem  lies.  If  it  weren't  for  the
       president just making political appointments to the NRC, and
       I  don't  just  mean the current president. And the Congress
       sits there like a bump on a log  doing  nothing.  Of  course
       it's  not  possible  it  reform  the  NRC. A majority of the
       Congress doesn't care. The majority of Congress  thinks  the
       NRC is doing exactly what they wanted done, which is to pro-
       tect the nuclear industry.

       TT: What successes have you had since working at  the  Union
       of Concerned Scientist in getting the NRC to do its job?

       RP: We've gotten new  fire  protection  requirements.  We've
       gotten new requirements on what's called environmental qual-
       ification of electrical equipment, which is a nukespeak  way
       of  saying to make sure that the safety equipment will actu-
       ally work in a plant during an  accident.  Of  course,  it's
       going  to  be subjected to rather harsh operating conditions
       of temperature, pressure, spray, and radiation.

       TT: Do you think there's a way to make nuclear power safe?

       RP: No. Because there are too many  corrupt  people  in  the
       business. After all, utilities are not there for the purpose
       of providing electricity. They're there for the  purpose  of
       making money for their stockholders. They do that by selling
       electricity. Safety costs money and it doesn't  improve  the
       profit picture.

       TT: Is it technologically possible  to  make  nuclear  power
       safe?

       RP: That's such a hypothetical question it's irrelevant.

       TT: What motivates you to care about  nuclear  power  safety
       when  it  seems  so  many others in the industry and the NRC
       don't?

       RP: I don't know. I really don't. I  maybe  had  it  drummed
       into  me  as  a  child that you tell the truth. What I can't
       stand is when people won't pay attention to the  engineering
       facts.  I  never  thought  that  I  was  some  wizard that I
       couldn't make mistakes. I'd be willing to change  my  safety
       evaluation  report  if  someone  would  show me on technical
       basis why I was wrong. I wouldn't consider  that  embarrass-
       ing.  The  problem  is they don't want to face facts. It has
       always amazed me because it seems to me sometimes  we  spend
       as  much time and money trying to deny that a problem exists
       than it would cost to fix it in the first place.

       I don't know why so many other people did  such  a  metamor-
       phosis  after  they  left  the Rickover Navy program. It was
       drilled into us in the Navy that you do things right or  you
       don't do them at all. But of course, you didn't have to make
       a profit in the Navy.

       TT: Can you give me any other specific examples  of  forcing
       the  NRC to enforce regulations at particular plants through
       your work at the Union of Concerned Scientists?

       RP: I don't know that I did any at UCS. Most of the examples
       were  from  when  I  was  still  at the agency. We don't get
       involved in many specific plants. It was sort of unusual for
       us to get involved in Yankee Rowe since we generally work on
       issues that affect all the plants. We've had  some  failures
       too. After Three Mile Island we filed a legal action similar
       to Yankee Rowe over the Indian Point  plants  in  New  York,
       basically  arguing  they  were  in  such a densely populated
       metropolitan region  they  couldn't  possibly  evacuate  the
       region.  We  also  pointed  out that the agency had required
       safety improvements in Indian Point Unit three  before  they
       would  issue  a  license  but  they  had never made the same
       safety improvements at Indian Point Unit  two.  So  we  suc-
       ceeded  in the atmosphere after Three Mile Island to get the
       NRC to hold a hearing. The NRC commissioners meddled in  the
       hearing  so much that their own hearing board chairman actu-
       ally resigned during the hearing. That went on for years and
       the  NRC  hearing  board  eventually recommended some safety
       improvements. When that went to the commission for  a  vote,
       they  voted three to two not to do anything.  So, that was a
       big waste of time for several years.

       TT: When we talked  earlier,  you  mentioned  your  concerns
       about the San Onofre nuclear plant here in California.

       RP: Unit one is one these real old plants. In the days  when
       San  Onofre Unit one was first licensed by the Atomic Energy
       Commission, they had a provision in the regulations where we
       could  issue what was called a provisional license which was
       supposed to be a temporary thing that lasts maybe a year  or
       eighteen  months  until we saw how well than plant ran. Then
       we would issue the full term forty year license. But it  was
       just  recently that the NRC got around to doing that for San
       Onofre Unit one. That's  because  up  until  now  the  plant
       couldn't meet the regulations to get a full term license and
       now that it's been issued, one  of  the  conditions  of  the
       license  is they have to install some of the safety improve-
       ments the NRC ordered after the Three Mile Island  accident,
       but  San  Onofre  never  did  them.  The problem now is that
       apparently both the utility and the public advocates  office
       of  whatever  you  call your state agency in California that
       regulated utilities, they both concluded it's  not  economic
       to  put  these  safety  improvements  in; it's not worth the
       money. I guess the final decision on that is schedule to  be
       made  next  January or February. If you want more details on
       that, you should probably talk to Carl Ory at Campaign Cali-
       fornia in Sacramento.

       TT: When the utility says it's  not  economical  to  put  in
       safety  improvements, what are they saying? That it would be
       cheaper to  deal  with  an  accident  than  to  make  safety
       improvements?

       RP: No, no. They're saying to spend the money to put in  the
       safety  improvements would make the cost of electricity from
       the plant so expensive you'd be better off  not  making  the
       safety  improvements and just closing the plant. Nobody ever
       looks at  the  cost  of  an  accident.  They're  covered  by
       insurance.  It's  only  the  public  that  suffers during an
       accident. So, that's not of any concern to a nuclear utility
       other  than  the bad press they might get if they killed the
       residents they're supposed to serve.

       TT: Aren't there fines imposed by the NRC on utilities  that
       don't meet safety requirements?

       RP: Yes, now and then.

       TT: Are they enforced very often?

       RP: The fines are if they levy them?TT: But they don't  levy
       them very often?

       RP: Well, they do. There's at least a fine a week. The trou-
       ble  is,  when  you're  talking  about fines on the order of
       $25,000, $50,000 or $100,000 that's insignificant. The  cost
       of  shutting  down  a  nuclear  plant  for  one day is about
       $300,000. So it's in  the  utility's  economic  interest  to
       overlook violations.  The chance of getting caught it pretty
       low. The NRC doesn't even inspect everything.

       TT: What gives you the hope that keeps you working  on  this
       issue?

       RP: I don't know if I have hope or if I don't have  hope.  I
       just  keep  trying  to do the best I can. I can't give up. I
       don't expect I'm going to reform the NRC. I'm not even  sure
       I'm  going  to  prevent a major accident somewhere. At least
       I'll try anyway.

       TT: Do you have any thoughts on what citizens can do?

       TT: Yes, vote all the incumbents out of office.  Start  with
       somebody  new.   That's  one  of the problems. There was one
       good county in Maryland where I thought the  county  commis-
       sioners  made  a  very effective presentation to the NRC. It
       all hinged on this whole idea that NRC calls a nuclear power
       plant  safe as long as the chance ofrendering that community
       uninhabitable is low.  But they clearly accept the possibil-
       ity  that  it could render some portion of the United States
       uninhabitable. So what the county commissioners did was they
       made  a  sort of table of how many people lived in the area,
       how many schools there were, what was their income from  the
       tourist  industry, what their income from agriculture, fish-
       ing, and so on. Then they told the NRC, "We  don't  want  to
       lose  it." So, I see people arguing over their local garbage
       dump or the adequacy of their schools when they're living in
       a  community  where  if the nuclear power plant goes pop, it
       won't matter how good  the  school  system  is  because  you
       aren't  coming  back.  I  guess to me it becomes a matter of
       priorities. I know there's other problems, but when you look
       at  the  potential for nuclear plant accidents, it's hard to
       imagine any other problem more  serious  to  that  community
       than that.

       TT: So communities with nuclear power plants need to  become
       more aware?

       RP: Well, it's understandably frustrating. The way  the  NRC
       has got itself set up is that it's writing the laws, enforc-
       ing the laws and acting as a court.  It's very, very  diffi-
       cult  to  get  the  NRC  to put the public's interest first.
       That's no different than any other federal agency that  sup-
       posed  to be looking out for general public. They're always,
       of course, trying their best to look out  for  the  activity
       they're  supposed  to  be regulating. The FAA really gets on
       the ball after some tops of aircraft fly off. But of  course
       they  didn't  do  a  good enough job to prevent it. It's the
       same thing going on at the NRC. Look at Three  Mile  Island.
       That  accident  was caused by the plant falsifying some leak
       rate calculations. And if they hadn't falsified those calcu-
       lations, the plant wouldn't have even been in operation. And
       because of the leaks they were having before  the  accident,
       the  operators became accustomed to seeing high temperatures
       in a certain pipe. The NRC knew, months before the accident,
       that  they  were  falsifying  the leak rates. They didn't do
       anything; they just told them to stop. But they didn't.

       Look at Peach Bottom in New Jersey. The NRC  was  inspecting
       that  plant,  writing  reports  on how bad things were. They
       don't do anything until somebody tells them that the  opera-
       tors are literally sleeping in the control room during their
       shifts.

       TT: What happened?

       RP: They closed them down. For several years.

       TT: But it's running now.

       RP: Oh yes. That's one area where the NRC's record is always
       clear. They've never denied an application for a license for
       a nuclear plant and  they've  never  permanently  ordered  a
       plant closed. About the best thing they've ever done was one
       of the things I accomplished when I was  there,  similar  to
       what  happened  on San Onofre Unit one. I managed to get the
       agency to have enough backbone to actually tell  Con  Edison
       that  they  had to install some emergency cooling systems at
       Indian Point Unit one. That plant ran for twelve  years.  It
       wasn't a question whether the emergency cooling system would
       work - they didn't have any! The agency let that  plant  run
       for twelve years until they made the mistake of assigning me
       to the case. And when we  finally  ordered  the  utility  to
       install  emergency  cooling  systems, they decided it wasn't
       worth the money and closed the plant. We didn't tell them to
       close  it.  We  would  have  been  happy if it kept running,
       decrepit and leaking as that thing was. The funny part about
       it  is, that plant was operating when the Union of Concerned
       Scientists - before I joined it - was in a hearing with  the
       Atomic  Energy Commission arguing over whether the emergency
       cooling systems in plants that had them would  even  do  the
       job.  I  always  found it ironic during my lunch hours to go
       watch this hearing where these people were  arguing  whether
       the  computer  calculations  were right or wrong when we had
       plants running that didn't even have any pumps! I  wasn't  a
       question  of  computer  calculations.  It  was a question of
       whether or not a pipe broke, that's all.

       TT: Was there anyone else at the NRC like you?

       RP: Yes, a lot people left, too. They resigned and went  off
       to do something else.

       TT: They didn't pursue the type of work you're now doing?

       RP: No. There's a speech one  of  the  former  commissioners
       gave  - I think it was Peter Branford who's now chair of the
       New York State Public Service Commission - on the  licensing
       process  of the NRC in which he pointed out that the way the
       NRC handles the public is to treat them with exquisite  pro-
       cedural  courtesy  and never in fact allow them to get their
       hands on anything vital. This can be expected  to  frustrate
       the  people to the point that they become shrill and demago-
       gic, in which case it's easy to dismiss them.

       I'm often wondering if I haven't now reached the point where
       I  should really should let someone else do this. After fif-
       teen years of batting my head against the wall  here,  maybe
       it's  time  to  let  somebody  else  try.  I  don't  want to
       discourage other folks from trying  because  it's  the  only
       opportunity  we  have available. I'm quite convinced there's
       no way we're ever going to get the NRC to put the public  as
       its first priority.

       TT: Who is there to do it? You said you didn't know of  any-
       one with your background doing this work?

       RP: Well, there's lots of people at the NRC. Maybe they want
       to try it for a while.

       TT: Do you ever feel the weight of the world on your should-
       ers as one of the only people doing what you're doing?

       RP: No, not really. I just do the best I can, pick the worst
       thing  and  try to correct that one. I can't worry about all
       the other problems. The idea is to figure  out  of  all  the
       problems  in the world, which ones you can make a difference
       on and which ones you can't and to not  let  it  bother  you
       about the ones you can't do anything about.

       Look at Rancho Seco that's  down  out  there.  That  was  an
       effort of a large number of citizens groups. I helped a lit-
       tle bit. Campaign California worked on it with other  groups
       out  there.  Eventually,  the  public  and common sense pre-
       vailed. It was very basically money that swayed  the  issue,
       not  the  safety  of the plant. Obviously it had never had a
       major accident; lots of little accidents  and  close  calls.
       But  basically, it just wasn't running well.  Fundamentally,
       and obviously, that's drives the public - money.

       TT: What connections  do  you  see  between  the  issues  of
       nuclear power and nuclear weapons?

       RP: That's where the insanity of all this started from.  The
       whole nuclear program was started to salve our national con-
       science over weapons. They even took the very reactors  that
       Rickover  was  using for machines of war. Nobody ever gave a
       second thought that the type of reactor being  used  by  the
       Navy would be best type of reactor to use for the commercial
       generation of electricity. A line I used in speeches at col-
       leges I made after I resigned is that it's the Navy's job to
       kill people - you'd hope that the local utility had  a  dif-
       ferent objective.

       TT: So, commercial reactors are based on the design used  in
       the nuclear submarines?

       RP: Not all of them. General Electric took a  turn  for  the
       worse  and  starting  building  boiling  water reactor. I've
       often found it ironic that there are no such things in Cali-
       fornia which is where GE's headquarters are. All the boiling
       water reactors were built elsewhere.

       TT: What other connections do you see between nuclear  power
       and the military?

       RP: That's how so much of the secrecy  got  started  in  the
       nuclear  industry. The propaganda that was coming out to the
       public in the 60's and 70's all stemmed from this ability to
       keep  everything  secret. Until the NRC came into existence,
       the AEC ran the reactor program like it was a  weapons  pro-
       gram.  In Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program in 1954 began
       what was first, of course, run by the Atomic Energy  Commis-
       sion  which  of course was responsible for the whole nuclear
       weapons program. So, you had this whole climate of  secrecy.
       They  just never told the public anything except propaganda.
       The original slogan of "electricity  too  cheap  to  meter'"
       which was from the chairman of the AEC in 54, was a bunch of
       malarkey. We knew there was no possibility of that ever com-
       ing  true. Why I think I get frustrated now is I see, almost
       like an instant TV replay, the  propaganda  now  coming  out
       about  this  next  generation  of  reactors being inherently
       safe. What an absurd notion that  a  device  which  produces
       thousands  of  times  more nuclear waste than a bomb does is
       somehow going to be inherently safe.  It's  absurd,  it's  a
       public  relations  effort  to  try to convince the public of
       this. Of course there is a problem; they  have  to  say  the
       existing  reactors  are safe, but the next ones are going to
       be safer.

       Another problem is that you've got a whole industry built up
       around  water cooled reactors - both boiling and pressurized
       water - by General Electric  and  Westinghouse.  So  there's
       this  built-in  bias  against  trying anything that might be
       better, like gas cooled reactors, which  I  think  have  the
       most  promise  of  offering  a  substantial  improvement  in
       safety. I don't believe for a moment that General Atomics is
       right when they say it's impossible to have a major accident
       - I just don't  believe  that.  But  at  least,  in  theory.
       they're  a  lot  safer than the existing reactors ever could
       be.

       When we would have meetings inside the AEC, they were always
       closed to the public. There were no transcripts of meetings.
       Now they have to have the meetings in public, but of course,
       nothing  substantive  is  ever  discussed  anymore.  The NRC
       invents all kinds of ways to get around the Sunshine Act. If
       three  commissioners have a meeting, it has to be public. So
       they meet two by two. It takes longer, but  they  can  still
       have  they're  meetings  in secret.  Then, they get together
       for a formal session and announce their pre-determined deci-
       sion. It's a great system.

         --------------------------------------------------------

       This interview was first published in:

       The Monthly Planet
       c/o The Santa Cruz County Nuclear Weapons Freeze
       PO Box 8463
       Santa Cruz, CA 95061