The Choir is Not Drawing

The Gordian Knot News choir never fails to disappoint. The Rockwell Memorial Don't Eat Cartoon contest has gone nowhere. So far we only have one entry, Figure 1.

Figure 1. Derivan RMDEC Entry.: Original photo: Paris-Ortiz-Vines

The artist is Mike Derivan. Derivan was the Shift Supervisor at Davis-Besse, when that plant had essentially the same failure as Three Mile Island. Derivan went against his NRC mandated training, figured out that the pressurizer safety valve had failed open, and shut the reactor down without further incident.

This was 18 months before Three Mile Island. If the NRC had properly publicized this experience and adjusted the training, the operators at TMI almost certainly would have figured out their pressurizer safety valve had failed, isolated it, and ended the upset. Instead the NRC regional office in Chicago sat on the Davis-Besse info. The TMI operators made the move they were trained to do. TMI2 melted down with multi-billion dollar consequences.

The NRC compounded the mess with a series of blunders, culminating in predicting a hydrogen explosion that could not happen. At this point, the bishop declared General Absolution. The locals threw the kids in the car, and got the hell out of there.

But I think we can all agree that Derivan is a better reactor operator than artist. We must have more entries. Come on, nerds. Engage your right brain. You have nothing to lose but your slide rules and pocket protectors. Am I dating myself?