Answer to Question #13523 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

As a health physicist with a nuclear engineering degree I love to watch and critique publicized radiation events. I would appreciate the Health Physics Society's public critique of "The West Wing" season 7 episode 12 for a reactor loss of coolant accident. 

I just finished rewatching this episode to refresh my memory and to make sure I didn't miss anything. I also pulled up a copy of the script that I found online. And, while I didn't read the script thoroughly, I did skim all of it. I guess I should add, too, that I spent eight years in Naval Nuclear Power, a few weeks in Japan after the Fukushima accident, and several years participating in emergency response planning (including reactor accidents) in Ohio and New York City. So, with that, here are some thoughts.

The scenario is that the failure of "the main feed-water pump" led to a relief valve opening, and a reactor emergency shutdown or "scram." A subsequent valve malfunction prevents additional water from being added to the core. As the reactor crew struggle to resolve the matter, pressure builds up in the containment structure (which is subsequently vented), and an evacuation is ordered. Eventually, a temporary feed line is installed to bypass the stuck valve. Somewhat later, in another plot line, plant engineers enter containment to try to open a valve to add emergency cooling water and to try to shut a pressure relief valve that was stuck open—one of the engineers picks up a dose of radiation that proves fatal by the end of the show. 

So, there were some problems with the episode; some are nitpicky (I'll skip those—life's too short) and some more significant.

• One problem is with units—at one point in the show they're talking about radiation dose rates during venting as being "1,200 reps"—a unit of dose that hasn't been used (as near as I can tell) for over half a century. The actual definition of the rep changed somewhat over time until settling down to 93 ergs per gram—making 1 rep about equal to 8 mGy, so the dose rate mentioned would have been about 10 Gy (presumably per hour, although the unit of time was not included in the script, a problem which persisted as described in the next section).
• Although the writers tend to neglect the time component, they're clearly talking about dose rate, while reporting it as dose. For example, during venting one character says that "Anything below 500 and we're fine," which seems a bit on the high side for a radiation dose rate outside of containment (notwithstanding we're not sure if they mean rep, rad, or millirad). And, when the dose rate is finally reported during venting, it's reported as "569 milligrams," which also makes little sense. In effect, the writers simply wrote down a bunch of numbers to try to instill a sense of urgency, apparently without bothering to try to even confirm the accuracy of the units, let alone whether or not the numbers themselves had any basis in reality.
• The man who dies of radiation exposure was said to have been taken to the hospital in a coma and then to have died within hours of his exposure. But this stands in contrast to experiences in which workers receiving 10–15 Gy have survived for days to weeks following exposure—suggesting that the engineer in this episode was exposed to a much higher dose of radiation (on the order of tens of Gy). But if that were the case, the other person reportedly working on the same task, would have at least been evacuated to the hospital as well, although this was never mentioned. This particular plot point seems a bit overly dramatic and not well-grounded in radiation biology.
• Also of interest was what various characters were doing. For example, engineers were in containment operating valves manually, as opposed to the technicians who almost certainly know the plant better. The President was authorizing stay times, not the plant or utility managers, which also seemed a bit odd.
• While I have to admit to never having worked on a commercial reactor, the concept of running a bypass line around a stuck valve seems a bit dubious as it would require at least one fitting on the reactor side of the valve to which a line could be connected, not to mention having the correct size of pipe made of the proper materials to withstand the 700-degree temperatures noted in this episode.

On the other hand, the show got some things right as well.

• The reactor didn't melt down! Not only that, but the FEMA head remarks that "A meltdown isn't when one thing goes wrong, it's when 12 things go wrong"—accurately conveying the point that each of a number of systems, procedures, alarms, backups, and safety features have to break, fail, or be disabled before a major accident can take place.
• The show also seemed to do a fair job of showing the panic that would ensue when such an event was made public. I was tempted to comment, though, that I was dubious that people in Arizona and Nevada would evacuate because of a reactor accident a few hundred miles away—but Barbara Hamrick reminded me of the much longer-range panic following the Fukushima accident. So this part seems okay as well.
• And…hmmmm…the only other thing I can think of is that one of the show's major characters, the Republican presidential candidate (a Senator from California) is portrayed as a more-or-less honorable man who is also pronuclear and he makes a number of valid points regarding the overall safety and value of nuclear energy. Although the character is shown to have some flaws, he is portrayed as a fundamentally decent person. So, in this case there is a good guy speaking up in favor of nuclear energy, even though his stance later costs him the election.

Overall, the episode was not so good as to make me cheer—or even smile broadly…come to think of it, it didn't even warrant much of a grin. On the other hand, most of the mistakes were not so egregious as to elicit tears of rage and frustration. And, to be honest, most of the mistakes that jumped out at me won't really change anybody's minds about nuclear energy. I mean, the typical person doesn't know the difference rad, rep, gray, and rem; doesn't make much of the difference between mGy and mGy/hr; and, likely has no idea what nuclear engineers actually do in an emergency.

Finally, overall, I give this a slightly negative score for being broadly anti-nuclear in tone and for having errors that would have been easily avoided. But all things considered, it wasn't bad and could have been far worse.

Andy Karam, CHP