A Little Useful Technical Transfer

I've commented before about the uses of science conference sessions to science writers, but at this year's Arctic Science Conference, some of the most interesting stuff came to my ears while I was standing in the halls chatting with friends and acquaintances. For example, over coffee I asked noted corrosion engineer Lyle Perrigo, "What's new?"

Half an hour later, I had some insight into problems in the Russian Far East that could have powerful repercussions for Alaska, potentially good or bad. With support from the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, Perrigo is among the Alaskans working to keep them to the good.

A little over 800 miles west of Nome lies Bilibino, a town in what is now known as the Chukotka autonomous region of Russia. The area would look familiar to many Alaskans, especially since the chief economic activity nearby is gold mining. Like a lot of gold camps, though, and much of the formerly Soviet Arctic, Bilibino is going through hard times; most of its mines closed in 1993, and since then the town's population of 17,000 has been cut at least in half.

Some of Bilibino's skyline wouldn't look familiar in Alaska: the town gets its electricity and municipal heating from a nuclear power plant.

Now, even a serious accident at the Bilibino nuclear plant probably wouldn't have major effects on Alaska, but we are downwind from the site, and there's no doubt that radioactive outbursts are bad for property values in the global neighborhood. It's easy to see why a corrosion engineer could be keenly interested in the health of Russian facilities.

So is the state government. Thanks in large part to that government interest, Perrigo and others, including people from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the University of Alaska, were able to visit Bilibino. That visit established communications and personal contacts, as well as giving the Americans some detailed information about the nuclear plant and the people who operate it.

Not all the information was heartening. Some competent people were among the ones leaving the region, seeking to better their lot elsewhere in Russia. Some of the changes the Americans suggested to improve plant safety couldn't be made because the Russian governments couldn't find the money to carry them out. And the hotel where the American visitors stayed was chronically chilly--the heating water wasn't getting there from the nuclear plant, because the pipes had corroded. That wasn't surprising, because the corrosion monitoring and control procedures were of about U.S. 1960s standards; the plant had no corrosion engineer or materials engineer on staff.

But a formal agreement to cooperate and communicate did come out of the visit, and that agreement has had positive results. Some of these improvements for the Bilibino workers may seem pretty small--Perrigo sent them a copy of a 1970 book chapter on nuclear decontamination, and then had to send another because the first was in such heavy demand that it wasn't reaching everyone who needed it. Others were more impressive and more expensive--with American help, a simulator for emergency-preparedness training exercises will be installed in the Bilibino nuclear plant.

Perrigo is now involved with another aspect from the agreement, training Bilibino personnel while they visit in Alaska. We don't have nuclear plants, but we certainly do have corrosion problems, and lots of experience in dealing with the demands of a cold climate. Russians visiting this fall were hearing not only from experts in Perrigo's firm but also from engineers in Enstar Natural Gas and the Anchorage Water and Waste Water Utility. That information session is to be followed by others, with probable funding from U.S. and international sources.

So that's what's up for controlling the potentially bad side of Bilibino's slightly shaky operations, but it's also good business. Of all things, Alaska is exporting--not raw materials, not mineral resources--but technical know-how to our neighbors across Bering Strait.