"Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator" (Jaczko)

A young scientist reverses course after graduating a newly stamped Ph.D. His advanced education and training is in a field one might deem the quintessential pure, physical science. But it's an applied route for which he is now interested. For him, it begins with a fellowship in Washington.

Gregory Jackzo, that scientist, knows little about U.S. government or Washington politics. Further, he's apolitical. Yet a high-ranking senator, since deceased, urges his ultimate nomination to the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC). Eventually, a teeth-clinching meeting by a well-known member in the Obama Cabinet concludes the administration's reluctant compromise to nominate him.

Along with Frankenstein in Baghdad and another title, I began reading Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator several years ago. As mentioned in my F.I.B. review, I shelved it (them) because I was moving. Unlike those two titles, however, I attempted several times to finish Confessions. Despite the date of this review, I finally finished the book itself a year ago.

See Frankenstein in Baghdad below.  

Perhaps it was the first of several systems on the lifecycle and operation of nuclear energy generation that overwhelmed me.  Who knew the next time I'd come across literature on the workings of nuclear technology, so I wanted a grasp of the basics.

​There's a scene in Atlas Shrugged where Daphne, the protagonist, tours the heart (as I think she referred to it) of a moving train. From its depiction, I perceived its sound as agony within the throat of industrial noise and the sight as machinery wrestling itself.

In Confessions, Jaczko writes, “Keeping a reactor cool requires much steel pipe, many motors, and a lot of pumps, each with its own price tag.” It wasn't the book that was overwhelming; nuclear technology itself is complex and intense.
​ 
Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator is the result of a theoretical physicist with no political aspiration holds the reigns of an obscure regulatory agency. But for the industry and its dealmakers, the NRC has a significance that it does not with the American populace.

I thought Jaczko demonstrated tact in his leadership there. It was a guideline that his staff worked for the NRC, not energy execs, but he welcomed both to commission meetings.

But why?

Perhaps it was a venue for Jaczko to oversee interaction between the two sides.

In addition to nuclear energy and nuclear regulation, his insights address what some insiders might not. For example, he was an advisor to both Washington and his Japanese counterparts during the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima. Washington was not prepared, he notes, for a long-distance nuclear disaster so far away; and that neither the NRC nor its safety experts were prepared or similated for a meltdown so long in duration.

“Because safety, especially as it relates to public health, is often informed by medical and scientific data, we tend to believe that safety standards are also determined by science.”

He later continues, “It would be an amazing feat if physics and biology had conspired in such away that safe radiation exposure could be expressed so simply using the number 100 and not, say, 102.36493. It is an unwritten rule of safety policymaking that, whenever possible, you work with simple numerical expressions.

"That is not scientific," he concludes. "That is practical.”

Perhaps that's why, in recent years, I saw no timely report of radiation leached from one nuclear facility until the determination that levels posed low risk to human health.

Confessions is not overwhelming after all. On this esoteric subject and obscure federal agency, Jaczko intersperses his thought-process; decision-making; and reflections throughout the book, including an appendix. 

His explanations are simple; so are his analogies. For example:

“Like a No. 1 bowling pin knocked over for a perfect strike," he writes, "the neutrons start a cascade of fissioning uranium atoms that can continue in the reactor for years.”

Or this one:

“Radiation comes in a variety of elements, each with unique properties. Some are more easily absorbed into vegetation. Others are harmful only if inhaled; their radiation is too weak to enter the body otherwise.”

​There’s something powerful about this book. Jaczko reveals what he could not as chair of the NRC. Despite his lack of political ambition; support from the Obama Cabinet; ties to Washington lawmakers; and cooperation from fellow commissioners -- he prevailed over an investigation of him as chair by the inspector general.

Great ending, by the way. The last chapter starts strong and ends no less that way. I didn’t know it was ending because it followed a cliffhanger in the preceding chapter.

It was bitter sweet though. I’m glad the rogue nuclear regulator got run out of Washington. His posture at the NRC wasn’t conducive to the safety regulations he was tasked with enforcing. His confessions, on the other hand, leave the reader with lessons as to why the citizenry would be wary. And as a testament to his continued commitment, Jaczko and his Japanese former counterpart have pledged to reunite when octogenarians over Fukushima.

I anticipate word from that day.

A book review of Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator (Gregory B. Jaczko)

"Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator" book cover (simonandschuster.com)

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Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). At the time of this review, she lives within a 15-minute drive to the decommissioned Three Mile Island. You can find her book reviews, including one on Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator, at landturn.com/reviews.

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