PERRY — Homer Simpson doesn’t work at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant.
Glowing green sticks of uranium don’t travel home with Bart Simpson; there is no such thing as a nuclear mushroom cloud from a failed reactor and Ashtabula County won’t go dark if the power plant shuts down.
“There are a lot — and I mean a lot — of misconceptions about the nuclear industry,” Perry power plant engineer Tom Kmiecik said.
Kmiecik quashed a lot of misconceptions Thursday as students from Jefferson, Pymatuning Valley and Conneaut high schools attended an informational seminar on the value of higher education and the nuclear industry. The seminar was sponsored by Growth Partnership for Ashtabula county and Ashtabula County Continued Education Support Services.
“When the Simpsons first started, people were concerned the nuclear industry would be portrayed badly. As an industry, we all sort of decided that the power plants being upset with the Simpsons would be like a rock quarry being upset with the Flintstones,” Kmiecik said.
The power plant’s uranium core is two million times more efficient than any other type of combustion source and produces a natural radioactive material, Kmiecik said.
“One out of two people think the power plant can explode, causing a big mushroom cloud. That is a physical impossibility. It 100 percent cannot happen. We don’t have nearly the nuclear-rich material for that to happen,” he said.
Some students voiced concerns about the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, in the former Soviet Union. Kmiecik said while Chernobyl was a major nuclear event, the radically different design of America’s power plants includes a comprehensive containment system.
Another concern, post 9/11, is security, Kmiecik said.
“Drawings of the Perry plant were found in the hands of Al-Qaeda terrorists, so there is always a threat. We have stepped up our security at incoming and outgoing checkpoints,” he said.
At the gates of the power plant, security guards search all visitors’ cars and randomly search employee cars, power plant spokeswoman Kristie Hutchinson said.
“Our tour program stopped altogether after 9/11, and now we are revamping those programs. We had 250 visitors last year and nearly that many in January this year,” she said.
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