Many jobs here depend on robust atomic future

For more than a week, the world has watched a few dozen people work around the clock to save an earthquake-ravaged Japan from a nuclear catastrophe.

By all accounts, the operators at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex have put their lives on the line to prevent a complete meltdown at multiple reactors — fighting fires, chemical explosions and radiation in the process.

In Lynchburg, Areva engineer Caleb Tomlin has kept them in mind constantly as he monitors developments in Japan. “It’s one of those things that you check every hour,” Tomlin said.

“You have to commend them,” he said. “They’re willing to risk their lives to prevent anything from happening to the public.”

Like more than 4,500 other people in the Lynchburg area, Tomlin has a stake in the success or failure of the crews at Fukushima. Nuclear power giants Areva and Babcock & Wilcox are among the region’s largest employers.

No matter the outcome in Japan, the ongoing disaster already is having repercussions on the future of the nuclear industry worldwide.

Ask those who oppose nuclear power, and they insist the events in Japan show unpredictable dangers about atomic energy, and a reason to stop its growth.

Ask someone in the industry, though, and they still see a robust future for nuclear power. Fukushima was caused by unprecedented natural disasters, they say, and the industry will apply lessons learned from the experience to help make future initiatives safer.

“I don’t see this as a death sentence (for nuclear power) by any means,” Tomlin said. “I don’t think you can take nuclear out of the picture. ... We need to take this into account, and move forward.”

Most of the nuclear energy workers in the Lynchburg region provide services to existing power plants or make nuclear power systems for Navy submarines. Because of that, the region likely won’t lose many jobs even if Japan’s struggle turns U.S. public opinion against nuclear power, said Joe Zwetolitz, Areva senior vice president of reactors and services.

However, the implications for new nuclear reactor development are unclear, and both Areva and B&W have longer-range plans in that area that would boost their payrolls in Lynchburg.

Zwetolitz said nuclear power has gained popularity with the U.S. public in recent years, as concerns have grown over carbon emissions from coal-fired plants and dwindling oil supplies. A Gallup Poll last year confirmed that: 62 percent of those surveyed said they favored nuclear power, the highest approval rating Gallup has tracked for the industry.

“Will something like this change it? It’s anybody’s guess,” Zwetolitz said. “I think it’s too early to say. Time will tell what this ends up being. The end of the story hasn’t been written.”

Reactor plans in question

The nuclear incident at Fukushima began soon after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that shook Japan on March 11. The quake cut the power supply to several nuclear reactors’ cooling systems, which keep the nuclear fuel from melting and releasing dangerous doses of radiation. The backup power for those systems turned on as intended. But then a tsunami swamped the plant, obliterating the backup electricity.

Water stopped flowing to the nuclear reactor cores. The radioactive fuel rods were exposed, quickening nuclear reactions between them and generating enormous heat.

All last week, Tokyo Electric Power Co. tried to keep the fuel rods submerged, avoid a meltdown and get the reactors into a “cold shutdown” stage. The company pumped seawater into the reactor cores, likely ruining the chances of using the reactors again.

The incident became the latest fuel for anti-nuclear sentiment. Germany backed away from its plans to extend the life of its nuclear generators. Switzerland called off plans for new plants. China announced that it would postpone building new reactors, according to the Associated Press.

Some want the U.S. to rethink nuclear power. Sen. Joe Lieberman said one week ago that he still supports the industry, but “we’ve got to kind of quietly, quickly put the brakes on until we can absorb what has happened in Japan.”

Whether that happens could have a major impact on Areva and B&W.

Areva has spent years prepping its Evolutionary Power Reactor design for construction in the U.S. Three years ago, the company applied for a federal stamp of approval on that design, and celebrated with the E.C. Glass High School band marching at Areva’s Old Forest Road headquarters, chanting “Areva, Areva!”

Finishing the design and planning to build an EPR could bring 500 or more employees to Lynchburg, the company said at the time.

Those expansion plans had already slowed before the Japanese tsunami, as the recession decreased demand for electricity and made it harder to borrow money for building a nuclear plant.

B&W, meanwhile, is designing a smaller-scale modular reactor that could boost a power plant’s generation capacity at a lower cost and with less-complicated construction. B&W leased office space in Lynchburg to house up to 200 engineers for that project.

B&W had little comment last week on what the Fukushima events could mean for the mPower program. “Until the events in Japan are fully understood, it is too early to draw any conclusions about the long-term impact on the U.S. nuclear energy program,” spokesman Jud Simmons said in an e-mail.

Lessons from past disasters

The nuclear disaster in Japan has prompted comparisons to two infamous events in the industry’s past: the partial meltdown at a Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979, and explosions and fire at the Chernobyl plant in the then-Soviet Union in 1986.

The Three Mile Island accident often is credited with sidelining nuclear plant construction for three decades. Chernobyl added to fears of nuclear power, although the plant there lacked many safety features common at U.S. plants.

“In each of those cases, the public … has expressed concern about the use of nuclear energy for electrical power,” said Charlie Pryor, retired president of B&W’s nuclear division. “The industry has, I think, responded extremely well in the aftermath, taking concerns into account and making whatever changes were called for and demonstrating a really great safety record.”

Following Fukushima, “The industry has a responsibility to address any public concerns that arise,” said Pryor.

B&W had designed the troubled reactor at Three Mile Island, and Lynchburg engineers helped get it into cold shutdown. The incident did not slow business or cut jobs in Lynchburg, Pryor said.

“As a matter of fact, our company’s nuclear division really grew from that,” he said. “Employment went up.”

“We had to help our utility customers implement all the requirements that came about because of Three Mile Island,” he said. “We had a responsibility to help our customers out with any further maintenance, and repairs and parts. Of course, we continued to build nuclear fuel.”

Zwetolitz said the aftermath of Fukushima also could bring some more work to Areva in Lynchburg.

Once the U.S. nuclear industry has all the data on Fukushima, utilities will evaluate how to prevent similar incidents. Already last week, officers of the country’s 104 nuclear power reactors agreed to reexamine their readiness to handle natural disasters, loss of power and other hazards.

Some solutions are already in place. Many U.S. reactors, for example, have gravity-fed cooling systems that can dump water onto a hot reactor without electricity, Zwetolitz said.

Areva already has talked with customers about improvements to make in a post-Fukushima world, he said.

Zwetolitz believes Fukushima Daiichi’s operators will be able to avoid a full meltdown. Then, the world could focus less on the nuclear reactors and more on how to relieve suffering and foster rebuilding in Japan.

“At the end of this, I think they’re going to get the fuel cooled and stabilized,” Zwetolitz said. “The biggest thing is, what are the people of Japan going to do to put their lives back together?”