T-Minus 3 Weeks

I haven't been updating this, but now that I am 3 weeks away from my next nuclear job, I figure it is about time to get cracking on the personal posts.


My friend, Nicky Grisham (a newly-made Junior Health Physics Technician), is going to be joining me on a trip to Pottstown, Pennsylvania to work a refuel outage at Limerick Electric Generating Station. We will be gone for about a month and rooming together at the Pottstown Days Inn.


Limerick is owned and operated by Exelon, likely the owner of the largest number of nuclear power plants in the country.


My wages are going to be about the same as at STP, but we get $110 per diem (tax-free), of which I will spend probably spend less than half for expenses. We also get ~$500 in travel reimbursement, the rest of which I can deduct on my taxes.


Limerick has boiling-water reactors, as opposed to the pressurized-water reactors of STP. In a BWR, the reactor core heats water, which turns to steam and then drives a steam turbine, whereas in a PWR, the reactor core heats water, which does not boil. This hot water then exchanges heat with a lower pressure water system, which turns to steam and drives the turbine.


The effect of this difference is that in a PWR, there is only a small portion of the system that is in contact with radioactive contamination, and in a BWR, the entire system is considered potentially contaminated. That means MORE WORK FOR ME. That actually excites me because it is a new set of work details.


Also, Limerick has these bad boys:

Natural draft cooling towers! This is awesome in that they are the stereotypical symbols of a nuclear power plant and I have always wanted to see them. It's like working at the plant from the Simpsons.


That's it for this post. There will be some more as we get closer to launch day, but since there was such a long delay between posts, here is a bonus picture of my recent nuclear-related tattoo:

The molecular structure of uranium dioxide, the mineral of which nuclear fuel pellets are made.