Britt Hill
Senior Advisor for Repository Science
The NRC is celebrating a bit late as Earth Science Week was disrupted by the government shutdown.
Earth
science is all around us – the NRC is no exception. For us, the
foundations of nuclear safety rest on making sure a site has natural
characteristics suitable for a nuclear facility. The geosphere (the
soil, water, rock and atmosphere) at the site also must support the
presence of a facility. At the same time, the surrounding environment
must be protected from any impacts from the facility. And, of course,
nuclear facilities are designed to be safe from natural hazards like
hurricanes and earthquakes.
More than 100 earth scientists work at the NRC to make sure all of that happens.
Nuclear
facilities are found in many different locations in the U.S., from the
coastal plains of Florida to the oft-frozen shores of the Great Lakes
and out to the deserts of Arizona. Each location has a unique set of
natural conditions that must be understood by NRC earth scientists. To
gain this understanding, NRC earth scientists gather information from
field observations, laboratory tests and mathematical models. We use
this information to help us figure out how geological and environmental
systems work individually, and together as a natural system. Then, we
can see if adding a nuclear facility to the natural system can be done
safely and in a way that protects the environment.
We
know the characteristics of Earth’s natural system have changed through
time. The NRC’s earth scientists have to consider how the natural
system might change in the next several decades, or longer.
For
example, could the changes in climate patterns affect operation of a
nuclear power plant? What size earthquakes might occur in the future,
especially in areas that haven’t had many earthquakes in the last
century? And with the effect human activity has already had on the
environment, will a proposed facility add too many additional impacts?
These and many other important questions must be answered confidently by
NRC earth scientists, so safety and environmental protection is
assured.
So,
don’t be surprised to learn that in addition to all the nuclear
engineers, NRC staff includes experts in environmental sciences like
marine and terrestrial biology, wetlands ecology and pollution
chemistry.
That’s
in addition to the geological scientists who are experts in earthquake
geology, surface-water flow, severe weather and soil stability, just to
name a few. And don’t forget, NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane is also an
earth scientist who once worked on the Himalayan Mountains! She
talks about her experiences as an earth scientist on the NRC’s YouTube channel.
To learn more about what some other earth scientists do at the NRC, check out these NRC YouTube videos:
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