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Engineering from Duke University, and has completed additional graduate work in environmental engineering, modeling, and economics at Duke University. He has served on a number of national advisory boards involved with pollution prevention, environmental technologies, and energy related technologies, and is an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Next we will hear from Nick Waters and his staff. Nick is the Director of Emergency Management Services for Orange County. His office administers operations for the County Fire Marshall, hazardous materials response, emergency medical services, the 911 communication center, and coordinates all disaster training, planning, and response for the County. Nick has over 30 years of experience in this field. I am also pleased to announce that we have been able to add another member to our panel this evening — Mr. Robert Alvarez. He had encountered a scheduling conflict earlier, but fortunately, that was resolved and he is now able to join our panel discussion tonight. Mr. Alvarez is Program Director of the STAR Foundation in Easthampton, New York, and a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is a former senior advisor to the Secretary of Energy and the U. S. Senate specializing in commercial and military nuclear facilities and high-level waste management. In March, Mr. Alvarez was featured on the CBS "60 Minutes" TV show regarding the challenges associated with military high-level waste. Please join me in welcoming our presenters, beginning with Mr. David Lochbaum (applause). b. The Emergency— David Lochbaum He thanked everyone forcoming to the forum. As the first speaker, part of my job tonight is to lay a foundation for a lot of the information that later panelists will provide and basically get everybody on the same starting point on some of the information. There will be a lot of talk tonight about hazards, and I want to start with what the hazard is. Nuclear power plants produce a lot of energy, and the way that energy is produced is by the splitting or fissioning of uranium and plutonium atoms. When these atoms split apart, they form byproducts, not always the same byproducts, there are over 100 byproducts that are formed. The majority of these byproducts are unstable. These unstable byproducts seek to become stable by emitting radiation in the forms of particles or energy waves. That radioactivity that is released from the unstable byproducts can harm human cells if it comes into contact with it. Too much of that exposure can kill the cells or damage the cells. If too many cells are killed, a person can die in fairly short order. If cells are damaged but not killed, the damage can be passed on to future generations. The hazard we are talking about is exposure to radiation from the byproducts of the nuclear reaction. Where is the hazard? The fuel for nuclear reactors is housed in fuel pellets that are then stacked in long metal tubes called fuel rods, that are then placed into metal arrays called fuel assemblies. The smallest part that you see in the plant is the fuel assembly. As long as those metal tubes remain intact, the radiation stays at the plant and the only people that would be harmed are the plant workers, not members of the public. So the important part becomes where are those fuel assemblies? They start out initially in the reactor core. They operate in the reactor core for four to six years to produce the electricity that CP&L sells or other plant owners sell to their customers. After six years, or after they have done their job in the reactor core, they are moved to the spent fuel pool. The fuel assemblies must be initially put into a wet pool because when they come right out of the reactor core they are too hot, both temperature wise and radiation wise, to do anything else with them. So, for the first five years at least, they are placed in what are essentially large swimming pools to cool them thermally and also for protection of the radiation. That's the second place the fuel assemblies are stored. After five years, plant owners then have the option of moving the fuel assemblies from the wet swimming pool, the spent fuel pool, into large dry casks, such as the one illustrated. These casks are made out of concrete and lead and store up to about 50 fuel