Seabrook Station Nuclear Reactor Control Room

This past November I was hired by Florida Light and Power / Next Era Energy to photograph one of their Nuclear Control Room operators at Seabrook Station in NH.  The photo(s) would be used for a marketing campaign they were putting together.  This shoot was part of a collection of photographs that were being captured at Next Era Energy facilities around the country.  The shoot took place early in the morning on what was a training day for the operators. We utilized the Control Room Simulator which is an exact replica of the actual Nuclear Reactor Control Room.  Seabrook Station has only one Nuclear Reactor.  According to David Barr, my contact at the plant, the reactor control room operators go through emergency preparedness training every six weeks.  After the portrait session of the photo shoot I spent some time documenting the training. The instructor using his laptop to control the board set off alarms and situations that the reactor operators would have to respond to and in the end be graded on.  I was allowed limited access during the training as this is obviously serious business.  None of this could be more true given the disaster that is currently unfolding at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant in Northeastern Japan.  Even in the simulator you could feel the tension where room for error is not an option.  I can only imagine what the operators at Seabrook Station must be feeling for their brothers in Japan who are battling and risking their lives to avert a total disaster from happening.  My thoughts are with those Japanese operators working night and day in the most brutal conditions battling fire and high doses of radiation to keep the situation from becoming a complete catastrophe.