Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant is a place few of us ever give any thought to, and yet it is responsible for our most basic everyday needs. This plant creates the electricity people in New Hampshire use to turn on lights, utilize telephones, use running water, and operate computers. The plant is set far back from the road. It may well go unnoticed to someone driving past it. If one does see it, the thing he will usually notice is the huge concrete building that looks like a silo. This is where the actual nuclear reaction takes place, but it is just a small part of everything that goes on at Seabrook. The power plant includes a training center, a Science and Nature Center, and warehouses that hold the actual equipment to make the reaction happen.

            The first thing a visitor to the power plant will notice is stifling security. Security at Seabrook has been beefed up since September 11th. What used to be a simple, unmanned checkpoint now looks more like Checkpoint Charlie. The entrance to Seabrook is a maze of jersey barriers that make it impossible to get through without being stopped by security. The guards wear Kevlar vests, Army boots, helmets, and machine guns. In addition to the machine guns, these guards have extra clips strapped across their chests. They carry nearly one hundred rounds of ammunition on their person at all times. At this station, a visitor must submit his driver’s license and have his picture taken with a digital camera. These guards do not take their job lightly.

            After getting through the entrance, a visitor has two choices of where to visit first: the Training Center or the Science and Nature Center. The Training Center is where Seabrook employees must spend one out of every six weeks practicing emergency procedures. These practice sessions range from the most believable-what to do if there is something wrong with a cooling pump-to the most extreme-what would happen to the plant if there was an earthquake, tornado, and hurricane happening all at once?

            Inside the training center is an exact replica of the control room. This room looks something like the inside of a spaceship. There are three walls covered with panels of buttons, levers, and TV screens. The left panel controls the emergency cooling pumps, which the engineers in the room can activate if the reactor gets too hot. The middle contains nuclear control rods for the reactor. On the right is the switchyard, which is like a gigantic circuit breaker.

            The communication in this room is perfunctory at best. There is no social conversation. The men in this room ignore each other unless there is a problem to be solved or a question to be asked. When a question is asked, the method is very different from what one would expect. The question is asked; the recipient repeats the question, and then answers. The questioner then repeats both the question and the answer, while the recipient confirms it. This seems exasperating and redundant, but it is necessary. The slightest miscommunication can result in disaster. There is no margin for error.

            The Science and Nature Center is where schools send students on field trips. This place looks more like a museum exhibit than a building at a power plant. There are miniatures of the intake valves, which suck in water from the ocean to be used in the plant. These valves take in one hundred forty thousand gallons of water a minute and are nineteen feet in diameter. On top of the valves sit intake nozzles that are nineteen feet in diameter. These nozzles were recently redesigned to prevent seals from becoming stuck in them.

            Beyond this room is a room full of presentations that can be viewed with a simple push of a button. One of these is a presentation that shows the process of a nuclear reaction. Another shows how water is taken from the ocean and used to cool the reactor. There is also a quiz to test a person’s knowledge of radiation and nuclear energy. Along one wall is information about the different employees at Seabrook: trainers, operators, reactor engineers, chemists, auxiliary operators,  and maintenance workers.

            Behind these two building are the warehouses that contain turbines, water heaters and coolers, generators, and batteries. There is an entire roomful of batteries that make car batteries look like Duracell AAAs. These batteries are powerful enough to power the entire plant in case of a blackout. In the warehouses, security is top notch. Fans of the television shows 24, CSI, NCIS and such will feel as if they’ve just won a walk-on role on their favorite show. Visitors must present a photo ID, social security number, and sign a paper stating the purpose of their visit and waiving the plant of any misfortunes that may come to the visitor while in the warehouse. Outsiders are not allowed in these buildings without a plant employee, and the employee must be able to see them at all times.

            After signing the waiver, visitors go through metal detectors. Keys, change, and even some jewelry need to be removed before going through. Once inside, earplugs, safety glasses, and a hard hat must be donned in order to walk through the warehouse. Except in case of an emergency, the earplugs are the only one of these three that will be needed. Even with the earplugs on, the noise is unbelievable. People must shout to hear each other in this environment. In the summer, the temperature in the equipment rooms often rises to one hundred twenty degrees, and the workers are not allowed to go in without wearing ice vests.

            In these rooms, heating and cooling equipment is held. Workers at the plant know what all these things do, but to the uninformed observer they look like steel snakes coiling into infinity. In these pipes and tanks, feedwater is heated. Feedwater is the water used to generate electricity. The water is taken from the ocean and purified to the point that it pulls minerals out of the pipes it travels through. The feedwater is heated and turned into steam. The steam is under high pressure, which turns the turbines to create electricity. The steam is then condensed back into water and sent back to the ocean. For this reason, the feedwater must never come into contact with anything radioactive.

            Even with all the procedures, protocol, and precautions at a power plant, things can still go wrong. The human mind is not capable of foreseeing every possible circumstance. Around Seabrook, there are lights on top of tall poles. These lights will warn residents if they need to evacuate due to a problem with the plant. These lights have never been used, and everyone in Seabrook and its surrounding communities hope they will never see the day when these lights must be used.