[John Rogers]

Here's one last funny nuclear bit for you. In 1975 we were refueling the reactor core at the D1G training facility in upstate New York, near Saratoga Springs. Back then computers were main frames and not very accurate or sophisticated but the GE engineers tried running safety programs anyways.

We received a new big hook for the crane that did the heavy lifting inside "the ball" and it was x-rayed to insure it was okay. Well they found a void inside bigger than your fist and the crane company had to grind into it, weld it and do repairs. The computer engineers ran a simulation on what would happen if the hook snapped just as the reactor vessel cover was over top the pressure vessel with the fuel cells and control rods installed. It showed the shock of the hit was so great that the control rods would bounce up and the core would go super critical so fast that the water surrounding the cells would vaporize! The fuel cells would start to melt and the rods could not stop things going to hell! The fuel would start burning and actually melt through the bottom of the stainless steel pressure vessel, then into the ground underneath and not stop until approximately 250 feet!

Sort of like a Chernobyl with 100% of the on site people dyed in less than 2 hours! I looked at the shift schedule and oh my oh my I was supposed to be on that day so I got sick and stayed home for several days, just in case!!!! No problems after all but I was rested.