I've worked in one: Angra I, in Brazil.
The technology of the nuclear part was supplied by Westinghouse. Consulting engineers were Gibbs and Hill, of NY City.
Detail engineering, where I worked, was performed by the Brazilian company Promon Engenharia. This was 30 years ago.
Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brazil

I spent a portion of my early career working with nuclear reactor welding and inspection systemsfor submarines.

I spent 3 years at the South Texas Nuclear Project Reactor Unit 1 in Bay City, Texas. I worked there on the New Construction as a Welder for Bechtel

Did a refueling at Hanford in Wa. State.

Here is a post by Jock Dempsy from Anvilfire.com, a blacksmithing site I participate on:

Japan's Desaster and the Nuclear situation: Most of this is from a posting I made on another forum.

The problems in Japan have brought to the forefront some very serious issues. They are very timely since the U.S. is on the verge of building more nuclear power plants.

While there is a lot of hype about how safe the new smaller plants are going to be, I think it is just sales hype. We have not yet solved the problems of moving fuel to long term storage facilities OR reprocessing fuel OR taking responsibility for the long term costs that may be incalculable.

The point about nuclear waste is very important. In the U.S. we are playing Ostrich with our heads in the sand. EVERY U.S. plant is storing its entire life time of waste fuel in "temporary" holding. This is outside the containment building in the fuel handling area (where they load it from trucks). The area is often called "the swimming pool" because it looks like one. You can walk along the rail and LOOK at the glowing waste fuel covered only by a few feet of water. This is the same area in Japan where they have had fires and explosions AND where the older Japanese plants also store waste fuel. In the U.S. they have repeatedly rearranged the fuel storage racks to hold more and more fuel because the political problems of moving the materials have not been solved. Many plants are now going to "Dry cask" storage, but the waste fuel is still stored on site. IF this were solved AND the much debated Yucca Mountain facility opened we only have storage available for about 50% of the existing waste fuel.

In Japan the situation is probably not nearly as bad as in the U.S. because they DO move fuel out to be reprocessed and may not be storing the entire plant's lifetime of waste fuel as we do here. But I do not know this for a fact.

The ONLY logical way to handle waste fuel is to reprocess it and properly store the waste (for 40,000 to 1,000,000 years they say. . .). Reprocessing results in making plutonium and the issues of diversion to weapon making. . . There are also serious technological issues with reprocessing as well as the storage which most countries ARE NOT taking responsibility for.

In the end the problems with Nuclear are and have been largely political. In the U.S. the issues of moving waste fuel are political. But the politics run several ways. In Japan they take maintenance VERY seriously. When engineers recommended (Globally) that many components (such as primary coolant pumps) be completely dismantled, inspected and repaired the Japanese did it. In the U.S. they took a "sampling" and did a statistical study. In other words, they paper whipped the maintenance requirements. . . In the U.S. the O.E.M.'s did a lot of the inspecting. Protecting their reputations was more important than finding actual or potential problems. The system in Japan is not perfect either. There are always financial concerns to be considered when doing maintenance. The worst concern EVERYWHERE is how long the plant will be down. These things are looked at as huge money making machines and every hour they are not in operation is counted in millions of dollars lost. . . and thus there is a HUGE amount of pressure during refueling and maintenance outages to get them back on-line ASAP. Anyone at any kind of large plant knows this pressure and the results.

The problems with Nuclear are far too complex with terrible VERY long term implications for us mere humans to be responsible for. If the absolute BEST people were in charge (forever) it would still be too dangerous. But the best people are NOT in charge and the tendency is for the less qualified to replace the more qualified over time. The politicians, lawyers and bean counters have more power than the engineers and maintenance personell. THINK about that. . .

All comparisons of the Japanese situation to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are ridiculous. At both these previous disasters the surrounding infrastructure was intact. In Japan they lost off-site and on-site power. The SAME thing would happen in the U.S. in such an earth quake related disaster. In Japan they lost personell, transportation, communications and monitoring ability prior to the Nuclear containment issues. The same things COULD happen here or in other countries given a similar earthquake.

NO NEW NUKES!

Note: I am second generation nuclear maintenance. And glad to be out of the business.

Those jobs thanks to obingo will be filled by others not from here probably.  That is what he is doing now in Brazil selling more of your $$$$$$$ down the drain of no return for us. 

Peach Bottom     Delta, Pa

I worked nuke construction. I was hoping I might get in a few more years but hell no not now because everyone is in a panic again. Nuclear disasters just haven't proven to be the horror story everyone figured IMHO.  I am very much in favor of nuclear power stations.

I got a call from a headhunter.  They flew me to an interview, made an offer, and hired me.  Then I had to wait for my security clearance.  It took 3 months but they let me work in an unclassified facility until my clearance came in.  Some people took up to a year to get a clearance. Clean living is key. They will even check into your friends and family.  One guy I worked with whose clearance was up for renewal was grilled by the FBI about his son's pot use.  The FBI grilled me and wanted to know if the father used POT.  The parinoia back then was that if a person's family was in trouble the KGB could use that as blackmail to recruit them to spy.  One woman who was straight was accused of being a lesbian during her clearance investigation because she lived with a female roommate.   The same questioning logic was applied to her.  However I lived as a straight with 2 straight male roommates in a shared house for 8 years and was never questioned on it.

Sub contracted for Bechtel.
Almost any nuke is a Bechtel job.
And it paid great $
Hope this helps.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Kent