Red North!

by Mark Lemke

CHAPTER 31

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  FRIDAY

  THE HEADLANDS NUCLEAR POWER PLANT CONTROL ROOM

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  Dave Street woke up at 4:40 p.m, glad it was Friday and his workweek was almost over.? He never felt well rested when working graveyards.? Humans just weren't supposed to work at night and sleep during the day, and he fit that profile well.? His circadian rhythm lent itself to being diurnal, rather than nocturnal.? The good news was that he only had to do it for three or four nights in a row, depending on where in the five-week work cycle he was.? Today wasn't even his night to take the watch, as he'd already done his three-night stretch.? But he had to cover for a guy who'd called in sick.? Even though he was management, at least he got overtime for working tonight-something most guys in management didn't get.? ?It was one of the few perks of being a shift-worker.

  He had about an hour to shower and shave, grab a bite to eat, and get out to the plant by 6:30 p.m.? He liked to get there at least a half hour before the start of his 7 p.m. shift and let the off-going shift manager get out a bit early.? In turn, the on-coming shift manager would hopefully relieve him a bit early, too.? It was still a twelve-hour shift, but it always felt good to go home early.?

  Dave dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom to get cleaned up.? A hot shower always felt good, but he didn't linger tonight.? Too much hot water zapped his energy and made him even groggier than usual.? Tired and unsteady wasn't something he wanted to be when overseeing the operation of a five-billion-dollar nuclear power plant.? Dave took his job seriously; despite the long hours of working all night, he enjoyed the challenge it provided him.? Not demanding from the aspect of being a hard job to figure out, but from knowing how it all worked and tweaking the two massive 1,200-megawatt electric Westinghouse turbines to squeeze every bit of juice he could out of them.? His pay was the same regardless of how much power the plant produced, but it was a matter of pride with him, and a little bit of a competition, to operate this state-of-the-art power station better than his peers on the other four crews.? Even though tonight's crew wasn't his usual team, as the shift manager he was the one who was ultimately responsible for the performance of the plant.? He was planning on having a good night.?

  After his shower, he dressed in his usual tan Dockers, ankle-high Red Wing work boots, and a crisp, white dress shirt with The Headlands logo stitched over the left breast pocket.? Despite his position of authority, he wasn't required to wear a tie. ?As a matter of fact, it was considered a safety hazard around rotating equipment.? If it got caught on the shaft of a motor that was rotating at 1,800 rpm, it could literally rip his head off.? So, a tie was not part of his routine attire.?

  Dave checked his pen to make sure it was retracted before he put it in his pocket.? He'd ruined too many shirts by putting away a pen with the tip extended and bleeding ink all over the cotton fabric.? Annoying as that was when it happened, at least the company provided the shirts and he didn't have to pay for them.? He would, however, suffer the slings and arrows of his merciless crew.? They would make endless fun of him.

  Badge, watch, wallet, and keys all put in their various pockets, he headed down to the kitchen to check for messages on the phone and grab a bite to eat.? He half expected to hear from Kay, but the little red light on the answering machine wasn't blinking.? No messages.? Probably just as well.? He assumed Kay and the kids were enjoying their visit with Nana.?He tended to be a bit cranky on graveyards, and he didn't want to get into an argument with Kay over some silly, unimportant thing.?

  He nuked a frozen Mexican dinner in the microwave and sat down to check the stock market and the latest world news on his?laptop.? He also wanted to see how his retirement portfolio was doing.? It wasn't doing what it used to do a few years ago.? The economy was in flux and there was no telling if it would be up by several hundred points or down by a similar margin. ?Weird.

  After he choked down the 'fine' cuisine, he threw together a quick lunch of a can of soup, some fruit, and his favorite desert, Hostess Snowballs.? He could get something to drink from the gedunk machines out at the plant later.? He looked around the kitchen on his way out to the garage to make sure the house was locked and the lights were off.? Satisfied everything was in order, he got in his truck and headed to the plant. He was anticipating another quiet night with both units at 100 percent power and no major maintenance in progress.? The plant was heading into an outage shortly and most maintenance was being deferred to when the plant would be shutdown.

  At 6:25 p.m., he pulled into the staff parking lot.? At this time of night, he generally had his choice of spots because the day shift folks had all gone home for the night.? It was chilly as he got out of the truck so he pulled on a light jacket.? He seldom drove with a jacket on because it was bulky and uncomfortable, but usually had one with him for the walk to the plant.

  Dave entered the security building and walked into the search train.? He put his lunch on the conveyor, where it was x-rayed for contraband, and stepped into the explosive detectors.? He stood there as a gentle whoosh of air washed over him.? The gentle electronic 'ding' told him he was good to continue.? He waved at the security officer stationed there to observe the process, picked up his lunch off the conveyor, and exited through a one-way turnstile to the outside and the short walk to the admin building.?

  Once outside, he heard the familiar drone of the station.? Some of it was the mechanical noise generated by the various pumps and equipment in the turbine building.? The flow noise from both water and steam on three levels of moisture separator reheaters, feedwater heaters, and the massive condenser was so loud inside the turbine building you couldn't hear someone speak to you unless they were shouting in your ears.? Other noise was a humming coming from three stationary, gas-filled giant transformers as they converted the 25-thousand volts of electricity developed by the immense hydrogen-cooled generators into 500-thousand volts for transmission to the Western Intertie.? The electrical grid was more than one hundred miles from the plant and ran up and down the central valley of California, connecting the western states, which gave it it's name.? Most people mistakenly thought the station provided electricity to the local community.? In fact, The Headlands-like all power plants producing electricity-supplied electricity to a common network.? Brokers at corporate headquarters in San Francisco and elsewhere buy and sell power based on supply and demand.?

  The Headlands was what's called a base load plant, meaning it's purpose was to run at one hundred percent power all the time, with smaller peaking units elsewhere in the state adjusting for the changes in demand.? After a dozen years at the plant, Dave could tell whether the plant was running at full power or something less just by listening.? As he expected, it sounded like it was running at full load tonight.? Good for the company, but ultimately a boring night for him and the crew.?

  He entered the admin building, now deserted at this time of night, and rode the elevator up to the 140-foot deck, so named for its height above sea level.? From there, he walked across a catwalk to the turbine building, where he picked up his hard hat, safety glasses and hearing protection, and then made the short walk across the turbine deck and into the control room. ?

  The turbine deck was impressive.? It looked like an airplane hanger with two gigantic four-stage turbines, each with a hydrogen gas-cooled generator at the end.? Three stories overhead hung huge cranes used to lift the 100-ton turbine components during maintenance outages.?

  The turbines used both high-pressure and low-pressure steam for their motive force.? The steam ran through huge pipes, which, despite being wrapped in heavy lagging for thermal protection, gave off a lot of heat.? So the turbine deck was both hot and noisy.? For Dave, this was normal.? For visitors, though, the heat and vibrations could make them dizzy.? That wasn't much of a problem anymore, as visitors were no longer allowed in the plant since 9/11.?

  Halfway down the turbine deck was the entrance to the shift manager's office, which was adjacent to the control room.?Dave swiped his badge
on the card reader, put his hand in the hand geometry reader, and heard the familiar 'click' as the door was unlocked electronically.? He had to lean into the door to push it open because it was a heavy hardened steel door, several inches thick.? The door, like the walls of the control room itself, were designed to provide shielding from radiation for the operators in the unlikely event a reactor accident releases radioactive materials into the plant.? It also had a bulletproof window, allowing people to look inside but keeping them out.? The plant was a commercial facility but still had a significant amount of security.? The control room was the nerve center of the plant, and therefore, the most important place to protect.?

  The door opened directly into the shift manager's office.

  "Hey, Bill," Dave greeted the on-duty shift manager, as he walked into the office.

  "Boy, am I glad to see you, Dave.? What a day!"

  "Kept you busy, did they?" said Dave as he put his things down on a spare chair and took a seat across the desk from Bill.?

  "It's day-watch.? What else do you expect?? But things are hot, straight, and normal."?

  Dave had to chuckle to himself. Bill was one of the older shift managers and liked the things on his desk to be just so. There were no papers left lying about. His coffee cup was cleaned and put away. His computer screen was positioned perfectly to be seen by whoever sat at the desk. And his pen was parallel to the edge of the desk. Dave wasn't nearly as organized. And just to pull Bill's chain, when he was relieved by Bill, he often left things askew on his desk, making sure the pen was at some odd angle.

  "Any night orders from the boss I should know about?"

  "Just the usual boilerplate stuff.? Nothing new.? Lots of scuttlebutt about Brenda though.? The Health Physics Department is upset about it.? Everybody liked her.? I guess nobody has seen her husband either.? That's got to be tough.? Nothing for you to get involved with. Just be aware that people are edgy about it."

  "Okay.? I'll fill in my team at the shift brief tonight.? Both units at 100 percent power?"

  "Yup.? You know what you had last night?? More of the same tonight.? No major maintenance going on.? No surveillance testing in progress.? We got it all done for you!"

  "Got it."? Although Dave had his notebook out to take notes, there was nothing much to write down.?

  "We have tomorrow's clearance and tagging requests all printed out and ready for you to hang at 0400.? I know you've been on for the last few nights, so you know what the schedule for the week looks like.? You got any questions?" Bill asked.

  "Nope.? Let's do a quick board walk-down and get you outta here."

  "I'm all for that," Bill responded, eager to go home.

  Dave and Bill went into the main area of the control room.? The Headlands was a dual-unit facility, so the control rooms for Unit 1 and Unit 2 were connected and share one large common room.? Bill went to one end of the huge control boards and just started walking, allowing Dave to look at the hundreds of level indicators, pressure indicators, breaker and pump position indicators, valve indicating lights, electrical buses, control rod positions, and main generator output indicators.? To an outsider, it would look impossible for anyone to know what they all meant.? But after years of working in the plant, Dave knew what each one was, what a good reading looked like and how to discern slight trends.?

  He also knew the location of valves and equipment outside the control room.? The company put him through an exhaustive twelve-month program to obtain his senior reactor operator license, equivalent to a Bachelor of Science degree in nuclear power.? It included six months, eight hours a day, of reactor physics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, fluid flow, electrical theory, mathematics, and nuclear design.? That was followed by six months of running the plant through startups, shutdowns, casualties, and steady state conditions, all on a simulator.? Then came the NRC boards, including an eight-hour written exam, a plant walkthrough with an NRC inspector lasting four to six hours, and a three-hour simulator exam.? Most operators, who made it through the program, including those who already had college degrees, felt it was the most challenging program they'd ever been through.?

  Dave took a few notes as he walked and said hello to the board operators who were in the process of doing the same kind of turnover.? Although this wasn't his normal crew, he knew all the guys in Operations, including those on watch tonight.? While there were a few women in the Operations Department of about 145 people, none of them were on shift tonight.? It was physically demanding work to be out in the plant, where it's hot and noisy.? Women were a rarity in this profession.

  As they finished the control board walk-down and returned to his office, Dave said, "Okay, Bill, I relieve you."

  "Thanks.? Kenny will be relieving you on the flip side tomorrow morning.? Keep it out of the ditches!"? Bill picked up his lunch box, jacket and personal protective gear, and left their office.

  Dave settled in, putting his notebook on the side of the desk, his coffee cup in it's usual spot, then logged onto the computer to check his e-mail and view various plant programs he'd need to keep an eye on tonight to make sure the plant was working properly.?

  That's when he saw it.? The e-mail was addressed to him, but he didn't recognize the sender.? The subject said simply:

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  "Read Immediately"

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  As he opened the e-mail and read the first few lines, his heart started to race and he broke out in a cold sweat.?