Producing Green Energy with Ron DiSabatino

Liam Dempsey: We are excited to share plans for our 2nd in-person gathering. It’s your chance to meet and mingle with our Start Local community. 

As we have been talking about all summer long, folks who are subscribed to our email notifications already have these details, but we are sharing them now with our listeners. We are heading back to Stolen Sun in Exton on Wednesday, September 18th from 5 to 7 PM. Come out to connect with and get to know the wonderful people in our Start Local community. Enjoy great conversations, delicious food, and fantastic beers, cocktails, and non-alcoholic drinks. Attendance is free, but registration is required. Learn more and register on our website at [startlocal.co/gather]. That’s [startlocal.co/gather]. We’ll see you there.

Welcome to Start Local, where we talk with business owners, leaders of nonprofits, and other members of our community focused on doing business in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. Each episode will provide insight into the local business scene and tell you about opportunities to connect with and support businesses and nonprofits in your local area.

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Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local. I’m Liam Dempsey, and I am in the recording studio yet again with my co-host, Erik Gudmundson. That’s a good thing. Erik, how are you today?

Erik Gudmundson: Hey, Liam. I’m doing well.

Liam Dempsey: I like the sound of that. We have big news to share today, folks. Big news about our next in-person networking event. You are gonna hear it here first.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s right. We are returning to Stolen Sun in Exton. We’ll be there on Wednesday, September 18th from 5 to 7 PM. So do mark your calendars. More details are available on our website. So head on over to [startlocal.co] to learn more and register to attend, Wednesday, September 18th.

Liam Dempsey: Folks, based on what we had back in our event back in March, we expect this upcoming event to be very popular. Something like 99% of the people who registered for our free networking event attended in March. So, spaces will absolutely be limited. We’re still working all that out. But, if you wanna make sure you can attend, you’ll wanna get over and register early, [startlocal.co].

Today, we are joined by Ron DiSabatino. Ron is the VP of Nuclear Engineering with Constellation. Headquartered in Kennett Square, Constellation is the nation’s leading provider of carbon-free energy. 

Welcome, Ron. Thanks for joining us.

Ron DiSabatino: Thanks, Liam. Thanks, Erik.

Erik Gudmundson: Ron, it’s really nice to see you. I’m used to seeing him on the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce, but, it’s nice to have you here in the podcast studio.

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I’m completely thrilled to join. I do, I really appreciate the, you know, the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce. You know, that’s where I’ve met both of you, and it’s just been a great opportunity as I’ve gotten involved and had the privilege of getting involved with them, you know, as part of my role here at Constellation. Just the amount of networking and community involvement that opens up. So, I was thrilled when you folks approached me to join the podcast.

Liam Dempsey: Well, we’re delighted that you’re here, and let’s jump right in. Tell us about Constellation. It’s clear we know you’re a big company. You sponsor a lot of community events. You employ a lot of folks at your growing, complex down in Kennett Square. But kind of stepping aside from that community phase, what exactly do you do? What services do you provide? And frankly, how does Constellation make money?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. It’s a great question. So, you know, first and foremost, Constellation, we’re the nation’s largest producer of reliable, clean, carbon-free energy. And we supply energy products and services to all sorts of industries, whether it’s homes, institutional customers, the public sector, you know, businesses. I think one of the statistics is 3/4 of the Fortune 100 companies get their power supplied through Constellation. So, you know, we have a very large fleet of generation that’s available to us, and it’s mostly nuclear. We also have hydro, wind, and solar generation facilities. 

And when you look at just the size of our company, we are a generation company. And so we’ve got, you know and the numbers sound big, and if folks aren’t familiar with the electric industry, you know, we can, you kinda try to translate things like we produce 32,000 megawatts of electricity. That’s our capacity. But what does that really mean? Well, it’s about 16,000,000 homes and businesses, you know, can use that amount of power. So we are really large. And the thing that makes us special and unique is, you know, all of our focus is on providing clean, reliable, carbon-free energy. 

And we are the number one producer in the country of carbon-free energy. And we actually, our company produces 10% of all the carbon-free electricity in the countries produced, by us.

Erik Gudmundson: The big energy statistic that always sticks out in my mind is 1.21 gigawatts from Back to the Future. And I think that has nothing to do with anything you just said. But I do wanna understand, one of your comments a little better, and that was back to clean and green energy, specifically because it’s certainly in the news a lot. It’s definitely the topic of a lot of public debate. So, could you walk us through maybe some of the key issues, so we can better understand the debate itself?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I think, you know, the whole discussion of carbon-free energy really starts with people understanding where our energy comes from. You know? I think, you know, when I talk to people about what I do and how, you know, the electrical grid and the generation sources that supply it relates to them, people really think about when they turn a switch, do their lights come on? They see their bill at the end of the month, you know, for power prices. 

And outside of those two things, people usually don’t have a lot of interest or questions, but they’re always very curious. And so, I really do enjoy, you know, having that opportunity, and I always have, you know, a little bit of facts and info for folks, to kind of learn a little bit more about the energy mix that makes up our electric grid, both regionally and over the country. 

So, When you look at all the power that’s generated over the course of the year in the country, about 60-65% of that comes from fossil fuels, and we’re talking natural gas and local, primarily. 20% is nuclear, and then the remaining, 7% wind, about 7% hydro, and 2% solar.

So the vast majority of the power, in the county comes from fossil fuels. And fossil fuels are an important part of the energy mix, you know, as far as the supply and the existing technology that’s on the grid. But there is a huge push towards clean energy and a, you know, a transformational change in our generation profile as a country. 

And for folks who are interested in the impact that our society has on the environment and on the climate, you know, there are some important considerations when you think about that mix that I just described when you think about where our electricity comes from. So, you see interest from state and local governments as far as legislation. All sorts of corporations are making commitments to reduce carbon emissions over the next several decades. As a nation, we’ve made commitments. You see, you know, nations all across the world making commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

And one of the challenges is really understanding what that means when it comes to where we get our power from and how, where is that practically feasible. And so, now more than ever, there’s a whole new renewed interest in nuclear power in general, which, you know, is the industry that I work in. But more and more, you see environmental advocates, and key, you know, influential, politicians and business leaders taking an interest in clean energy and, quite frankly, now advocating for nuclear power as an important part of that energy mix. 

Folks, you know, Oliver Stone recently released a documentary called ‘Nuclear Now’, that really highlights this whole topic. And so, I think that’s a great source of information if folks are interested in the discussion or looking for more details. But, you know, when you can kinda lay it out in the simplest terms, when you look at the overall mix of energy and, really, you know, how big each contributes to our, you know, energy grid. So when you look at, you know, I talked about, you know, 60 to 65% is from fossil fuels, while the remaining, you know, 30 to 40% is coming from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar. And so when you look at those, you know, 3 different, you know, areas specifically, each source of electricity brings a different pros and cons when you come to that discussion. 

So when you look at nuclear power, the power, the things that we are most proud of are, 1. We’re very reliable. Our nuclear power plants are designed to turn on and operate for a 2-year refueling, 2-year operating cycle, and then you would shut down to refuel the reactor and run for another 2 years. So on average, nuclear has what we call a 92% capacity factor where if you measure all of our plants and how much of the time we’re at 100% power, putting out our full output, it’s about 92%. Wind and solar have a challenge there where they’re relying on the sun or the wind blowing, and so they’re really subject to those factors.

So, wind power has about a 37% capacity factor, and solar is somewhere in the mid-twenties, 28, 27%. When you build a power plant that you’re relying on to provide power, you have to understand what percent of the time that facility is going to be able to put power on the grid. That’s one thing that really differentiates nuclear when you’re talking about clean energy from the 2 renewable, sources like wind and solar. 

And so when you talk about the size of our facilities, that’s the other big contributor as well. A typical nuclear plant has about 1000 megawatts of power. So, those are big numbers, but you can equate that to 500,000 or more homes.

Peach Bottom, which is one of our company’s power plant is located in Southeastern PA here, has 2 1,300 megawatts units, so 26,100 megawatts total, and that’s running at 94% capacity factor.

Some of the largest wind turbines you’ll see driving out if you’re driving across the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and you see some wind turbines on the horizon, they’re about 3 megawatts each for the large ones. So, if you think at about 3 megawatts each and if they run it 37% of the time, it would take over 1,000 wind turbines to equal one of the units we have at Peach Bottom. Okay? And then the other, you know, comparison we think about is the size and the physical real estate required for that energy. You know, a wind farm of that size to match 1 of a 1000-megawatt nuclear unit really takes up about 260, 360 square miles of real estate, and all the transmission and interconnection to get all that power back to a usable spot on the grid.

Solar is another great source. And one of the challenges they have obviously is they only provide power when the sun is shining. 

Then, the other thing is also the real estate. So one of our peach bottom units is really about the same size as 45 to 75 square miles of solar panels. Okay? So when you think about things, when you think about the physical real estate and the capacity factor and the reliability, and always being there to put the lights on, nuclear really is unique in that ability to meet that demand the same way the fossil plants do, but we’re also clean and carbon-free. And I think that’s the kind of unique thing that really piques the interest, you know, now and when people talk about clean energy. And that’s why you see the renewed interest in nuclear power.

Liam Dempsey: Thank you for those numbers. That’s really helpful. I’m afraid that my pencil might be running out of graphite here, but it’s definitely worth going back, I think, to listen to those numbers again because those are. there’s a lot to unpack there, and that’s gonna be really helpful as Erik asked to help us understand the debate around it. Thank you.

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the great things is there’s tons of great resources out there. You know, the Department of Energy’s website. You know, all those numbers I got are all things that are publicly available either in government or, you know, nonprofit type funded studies that,and entities that really are responsible for the reliability of the grid really do analyze that data heavily when they look at the energy mixes that are available to us. Because reliability is the other thing that I think people really care about and really needs to be tied to that clean energy discussion. It’s reliable, sustainable energy too because that is another advantage of nuclear power plant is we are what they would call baseload type power plants. We’re designed to turn on and run and be there, you know, when the grid needs it. 

Fossil plants have the ability. They will turn on and turn off based on market and demand power prices. And then the renewables, wind and solar, all are on when their power source is available. So the wind blowing, they’re gonna generate. When the sun’s shining, they’re gonna generate. Right? So, you know, what they, what we call in our business, we are really a 24/7 dispatchable power. We can be there when the customer needs it, when the grid operators need that demand, you know, when the weather’s really hot or, and more importantly, actually, when it’s really cold as well, there are huge demands on the grids, and they’re calling on generators to come online and meet that demand. 

And, you If folks remember, Winter Storm Elliott, it was Christmas Eve 2022. It was the first time in my lifetime I’d have ever received things like text messages from PECO you know, pleading with people to reserve power and reduce energy consumption because the re-grid was really, really constrained. And that was a time when nuclear power really shined. You know, the entity that runs our grid in the region, would have declared a mass generation emergency, really calling on all the generators in the region to be online and be available for them.

And when they examined, you know, what happened over that course of that, you know, winter storm, the grid was at its peak capacity and was very constrained. We were not far away from having to do things like rolling or more significant impacts on the grids. And the folks who operate the grids did a fantastic job managing that, but they were really challenged by a lot of generation sources that had outages or weren’t able to come online. 

And so, you know, at one point, almost a quarter of the generation capacity in the region was offline during that high peak demand event, and it was because of the severe cold weather. I think about 70% of that was from gas generation. The gas supply, pipelines, infrastructures, and gas plants were having a lot of challenges. There are issues, you know, if you operate a local facility, you have a lot of conveyor belts and mechanical equipment that has trouble in the cold. And that was one of those instances where our nuclear power facilities, which have all the fuel stored locally inside the reactor were able to kinda shine and be there for the grid through that critical condition, especially when it really matters to the community. You know, it’s Christmas Eve, and the grid was really in a tough spot there.

Liam Dempsey: So, nuclear-generating stations, some of us on the show might consider them a lot like living mechanical things on this planet. In that, they need fuel to operate, and they generate waste byproducts. You shared earlier in our conversation that a nuclear power plant will run for about 2 years before it gets a new round of fuel and is geared up again. Tell us about the waste that comes out. Where is it stored? How big is it? Is it a dump truck full? Is it 18 semis full? And kind of, without giving away state secrets, where and how is it stored?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. Sure. That’s a great question. So, that’s one of the most common questions I get when you tell folks you work at, you know, in the nuclear power industry. So, you know, first and foremost, you know, we use uranium, enriched uranium. It’s uranium 235 for somebody who really wants to start Googling and look up some facts about uranium enrichment and uranium supply. We’re able to manufacture fuel. It’s a uranium oxide pellet, so it’s like a ceramic. It goes into fuel bundles and fuel assemblies that get loaded into our core. Our core operates for about, either 18 months or 24-month cycles depending on the vintage and type of plant you have. And, when that fuel is loaded in the core, we’ll run for 2 years. And then every 2 years, for example, the plant that I, you know, I’m from Peach Bottom, we’ll have a 2-year cycle. At the end of those 2 years, we’ll shut down. We’ll do all the maintenance on the facility while it’s shut down. So we’ll bring in, you know, thousands of vendors and contractors and specialists to come work and do critical maintenance because we wanna do all the maintenance while the plants plan to be offline for refueling. So it’s a huge evolution to run a refueling outage at our power plant. So it’s a real, big endeavor, which we really have to partner with a lot of other companies and resources around the community to make that happen and be successful.

And we’ll take a third of the fuel out of the core and put a third of brand-new fuel in. So the life cycle of an individual fuel bundle goes for 3 cycles until it’s taken out. And so all the fuel is stored on-site at the plant. Immediately when it’s removed from the reactor, it goes into a spent fuel pool, which is in the building that the reactor is located in, and it’s stored there for a period of time. And then after a long enough period of time, we’ll then take those fuel bundles and we’ll put them into what we call the dry cast storage. These are hardened, they’re made of thick steel and concrete, essentially canisters, very large canisters. Our fuel assembly itself is about, you know, you can think of it in general terms, a little bit less than a foot by 1 foot in cross-sectional area, and about 13 feet tall. So it’s a very long, slender assembly, and we’ll load them into these canisters. We’ll take them out, the canister gets filled with helium, it gets welded up and sealed, and it’s fully self-contained, essentially indefinitely, and will be stored outside on a reinforced concrete pad for its life. 

The original intention when the nuclear power strategy was spun up in the fifties, sixties, seventies, was the federal government was going to take ownership and responsibility for spending nuclear fuel, and they were gonna create a central repository. And so folks, a lot of folks know the term Yucca Mountain, and Yucca Mountain was supposed to be that repository. And so, you know, without having something like Yucca County which had, you know, has not come to fruition there, the plant, our power plants are 100% prepared to store locally on pads at the sites for the life of the plants. So, we have the ability to do that sustainably. But long term, there really is that need and demand to have a, you know, a comprehensive, you know, plan for the long term, especially if we’re talking about building new nuclear. Other county have technologies where they’ll reprocess the fuel so they can take the fuel that’s been removed from the reactor, reprocess it because there’s still usable life left in that fuel, and then repurpose it and put it back in for another operating cycle of the reactor.

So those are some of the more intricate kinda behind-the-scenes nuances of the overall energy plan, and kinda the debates that surround spent nuclear fuel. But the big picture is it’s all stored locally on the site, and it’s there, and that’s a sustainable approach for the life cycle of our plants.

Erik Gudmundson: As a technical person, I really appreciate the nuance of your answer there. So that’s, this is fascinating to me so far. 

I wanna go back to Peach Bottom that you mentioned and also Limerick, since that’s another nearby nuclear plant. And those two nuclear generating stations, they’re licensed to operate by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The 2 reactors at Limerick, (I read, thanks to everything online) are licensed till 2044 and 2049, and the 2 operating units at Peach Bottom are licensed by the NRC until 2053 and 2054, which is a very long time. So these plants are going to be around for a while. How much longer could those licenses be extended, even beyond those years?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I think that’s a great question. I think that’s also part of the central debate that’s having out there when you look at the energy mix as well. So our existing nuclear fleet in the country all came online, you know, in the seventies, eighties, the majority of the plants. And so when they were originally designed and licensed, the, you know, the folks who stood up the industry imagined a 40-year life for the plants. Because they actually figured they were going to continue to keep building nuclear plants, and that the older plants would get retired and new ones were coming online. And that’s not the way the history unfolded for nuclear power, especially when you look at the energy mix with coal and gas, and the financials of building new nuclear power plants as they got into the 80’s and 90’s as well. 

And so what we realized was the people who designed these plants, and I have just so much respect for the folks who did the design work and all the, you know, the analysis work back in the sixties seventies where, you know, they didn’t have anything near the technology that we have in our smartphones today to do calculations and analysis. But there is a tremendous amount of margin and design margin in our power plants. And that really unfolds in 2 different ways: 1, the usable life of the materials of the plant. We’re talking about the materials that the low alloy steels that make our reactor vessels, the piping, the buildings, the concretes, the structures are extremely robust, and they designed them that way for a reason because they wanted to be as safe and reliable as part as possible. So there was tons of margin built into those analyses. And what you realize is as we safely operate the plants and monitor and maintain them, that we’ve been able to extend the licenses. So the Nuclear Regulatory Commission governs the licensing of our nuclear reactors, and they provide us our license to operate. And so at almost all of our facilities in Constellation, quite frankly, most of them in the county have gone through an effort they call license renewal, and they’ve gotten the operating license renewed for an additional 20 years of life that takes the plants out to 60 years. And so that’s where you see the numbers 2044 and 2049 for Limerick. That represents a 60-year life for the Limerick generating station. 

Peach Bottom is a little bit unique. We got the 1st license renewal, and that actually takes us out to 2033 and 2034 of lives. Peach Bottom was the first, and Peach Bottom’s a boiling water reactor, so folks are really interested in nuclear power, they can look that up, but there are 2 types, pressurized and boiling water reactors. And Peach Bottom was the first boiling water reactor in the county to apply for another renewed operating license to further extend that to 80 years. 

And that’s one of our company’s vision is when you look at that energy mix and how nuclear power is 50% of the clean energy in the county. We’re talking about trying to increase the clean energy that we have in our nation. But if our existing plants are retiring or coming offline prematurely, that is going to create a huge hole that will only be filled by fossil, by essentially gas, natural gas. And so, you know, the wind and solar don’t have that capability for that baseload expansion to fill the void that nuclear really fills when you talk about clean energy. So that is a key strategy is getting all the plants out there, usable life out to 80 years. 

You know, there’s talk in the industry and some of the industry groups about, you know, looking, could they, could we extend them again to a 100? And there’s certainly usable life left in these plants. Because we spend so much time maintaining them, all the other components, things that need to be modified or upgraded, we can put new turbines in, new pumps, and other moving equipment, and maintain or upgrade other systems, transfer stuff to analog, to digital, to really have that long term vision for the industry from where it came. And it’s all possible.

And so the amount of extra clean energy you can put on the grid in those out years with the licensure is actually a huge part of, if we really want to meet our milestones. When you think about years like 2030, 2040, and 2050, those are the same timeframes that state governments, local communities, businesses, and major corporations are putting out there for their climate initiatives are really to reduce their carbon emissions out in those years. And so, if they really want to do that, they have to have a reliable source of energy to get their power from, and that’s where we really think nuclear can come in. 

So step number 1 is we have these plants, let’s make sure we’re using the usable life of them. Number 2, when I talk about the margin and availability, we have the capability to increase the output of some of our facilities when you look at the margins by upgrading things like the turbines, changing the mix and type of fuel we put into the reactor, and really making sure we do additional analyses and look for areas where there was margin that was never taken advantage of in the power plant so we can increase the power output as well. And when you combine those two things, you can see where the vision for nuclear is using the existing fleet to keep clean energy on the grid and increase it out to those years. That will give us the time for the other technologies to really stand themselves up, whether you’re talking about battery technologies to make more advantage of the wind and solar so that you can have the power when the sun is down and the wind’s not blowing, things like advanced nuclear, the latest generation of nuclear technologies would exist and are capable, which have a huge increase in reliability and risk reduction and less reliance on, you know, external equipment and parts for all the systems and structures that they use. 

So there’s really, there is a bright future out there for clean energy, and I think the biggest thing when you look, especially when you look at the documentary ‘Nuclear Now’, that it points out is the existing nuclear fleet is a key part of that to help bridge that gap to where some of these new technologies that people have a lot of excitement and energy about can really fill in.

Liam Dempsey: That’s so interesting that I mean, to grossly or to simplify one of the things you just said, by maintaining the machines, the plant, you extend the life of it. Not indefinitely, but it’s like a, it’s like an old car. Right? We just take really good care of it. We keep the parts up. 

And you also shared that recently, Peach Bottom just did a shutdown for new fuel and major maintenance. Can you share with us what major maintenance looks like just in a sentence or 2? Like, is that like we’re closed for 6 months and we fix everything 24/7, and you better get out of the driveways because people are moving and trucks are flying and things are everywhere? Tell us a little bit about that.

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. It’s great. Refilling outages are, I think refilling outages is really fun. It is one of the only times where you just see such a big group of people all working together, all on the same project. So when we do shut down the plant, we’re not on the grid. So we wanna do that as efficiently. safely and reliably as possible. 

And so what we do is we have a whole team of people at our plants who essentially just prepare for those outages and help plan for them, help the whole organization plan for the outages. So on average, an average refueling outage for Constellation you know, might be on the order of magnitude of 20 days, 25 days. We’ve done them as short at our plant. At Peach Bottom, we had done one as short, you know, as, 13 days, 12 days. That’s probably on the extreme end of how short they are, and really you need about 2 weeks, rule of thumb, to refuel the reactor. And then you have to factor in all the other maintenance you want to do. So an example would be, hey, Peach Bottom’s turbines are due for their 10-year inspections, let’s say. So, we’re gonna have to take that time to do an inspection, or you might have a major component replacement or a project you’re gonna do. And that’s where some of the durations might extend out beyond just what it takes to refuel the reactor.

And so what we really do is we take all the list of work we wanna do, and you get it, you know, so for lack of a better term, get it on a whiteboard. It’s a computer system. And we really assign all the resources we need. We find out how many people we need to bring in and how big the teams need to be, and we try to do all that work. And so that’s the order of magnitude. It’s a couple of weeks, you know, somewhere between 2-4 weeks is probably the industry or our company’s average. You know, the industry average might be a little bit higher than that, and that’s where you see just a huge outpouring of support. You know, all the local hotels around power plants, and that local community actually all know when the refueling outages are. Vendors, there’s a whole specialty, industry for people who service nuclear power plants and do all sorts of work, whether it’s turbines or reactors or pumps and valve maintenance, electrical testing, and things like that. They have made their careers traveling around from nuclear power plant to nuclear power plant doing that type of work, and we actually schedule our outages thoughtfully. So we don’t have every plant down at the same time. And it’s really because of the resources we share. We have people travel between all of our power plants and go do that work.

The outages are generally in the spring and the fall. That’s the other kind of nuance because that’s when energy demand is the lowest and power prices are the lowest as well. So all the nuclear plants in the country are scheduled for their outages in the spring or the fall time frame.

Liam Dempsey: So I expect when those outages are happening, you have a lot of folks on-site who are working with their hands, who are any number of roles, very skilled tradespeople, and kinda casts my mind back to some of our conversations we’ve had on this show from folks with RV Industries up in Honey Brook and YMWIC down in Westchester area, talking about how they’re recruiting and helping recruit the next generation of skilled trade workers.

And we expect, well, I wouldn’t even know how many engineers work at your Peach Bottom or work at your Limerick plants, but I expect that’s more than I can count on 2 hands. Tell us about how Constellation recruits quality people for careers and trades.

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I think that’s one of the great topics. It really applies to all the industries and quite frankly, any business, you know, you have, it’s really the people who run your business through the heart of it and that’s absolutely true for our industry and our business. 

So one of our power plants employs about 600 to 700 folks, permanent full-time employees at the site. You know, I mentioned we’ll bring in anywhere between, you know, 23,000 contractors, sometimes depending on the size of the refueling outage, maybe even more if you have major projects. 

And so, really, without the people and the skilled tradespeople to go do that type of work, that technical work, hands-on work, you know, our industry would not survive. And so, you know, we have really taken a new approach over the years to really think about how we develop our workforce. And it goes way beyond just putting up a posting and seeing who applies for it. Because if we’re thinking about it at that point, we are way behind the 8 ball. 

And so as a company, we’re really big on workforce development, and one, it starts with supporting the local community. Your local community has to be healthy if you’re going to operate a business, and especially operate a business as large as, and as important as ours. It really relies on having the support of the local county. And so communities with nuclear power plants in them really have a good partnership and relationship because, you know, the nuclear power plants can really provide a lot to the community, whether it’s high paying, technical jobs, you know, and other community support as far as charity and local involvement, Local. 

So, we really start with outreach, really educating people, especially parents and students on careers available in the trades. And it’s not just about nuclear power. All the industries need it. So the more healthy interest we have at an early age in careers in the trades, the better.

Obviously, STEM, it’s a big buzzword in the schools and STEM fairs, and looking at, and how we’re educating our children, you know, in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. But really, there’s a big part of that that I think was overlooked, especially in the eighties/nineties, you know, was that you know, when I was growing up, really encouraging people to work in the trades.

And when you look at the demographics at our power plants, most of the folks who work there, and some of them are in rural communities, they really ended up with a job at the power plant in the trades because they knew somebody. A family member, an uncle, a neighbor, or somebody else really knew about the work, the job, and what a great high-paying career there was, and got those folks in and got them jobs, or got them into a trade school where they can learn a skill, and get into entry-level positions where they could then progress in their career. I think that’s something that was really missing as you know, obviously, there’s a big encouragement to have people pursue college degrees, but I think that’s something that gets missed when you talk about, you know, having a healthy, rewarding career in the trades, doing something with your hands, learning a technical skill, I don’t think was encouraged very well, you know, in the eighties, nineties, you know, and early 2000.

And I think we’re really seeing a turn there. There’s a huge interest in trade schools and vocational programs, and we see that with some of the folks that we partner with. The demand for those programs is very competitive to get into now, because people really, you know, you go learn to be an electrician, you learn how to weld, you know, you really have a very, very bright future and a very bright career, very sustainable career for you, your family, the community ahead of you.

And so part of it is really just educating folks and parents and students, you know, having parents encourage their kids to explore their technical interests, look at vocational programs, you know, do things like internships. So, we host all sorts of different information sessions. You know, we can send a team of engineers and maintenance technicians to your local elementary school to give a presentation on nuclear power. 

And down at Peach Bottom, we host a STEM Academy, so local high school students can come on-site for a week, and we’ll set up areas where they can do some hands-on experience and learn about our power plant and start thinking early on if that’s something that might interest them. Because really, the idea would be to line them up with opportunities where they could go to trade school, you know, get a 2-year, 4-year, technical degree, and then we could eventually onboard them. And really looking for new ways where we could help support them, whether it’s supporting their local vocational program at their high school, or supporting them with an internship, or the materials they need when they get into trade school, you know, in having them intern with us in the summers and helping them have that line of sight to a long term career that we really want them to have, that bright future so that when they finally do graduate, they’re eligible to enter the workforce, they’re thinking about Constellation and, you know, the other local industries we depend on as well.

Erik Gudmundson: The idea of having a bright future at Constellation, is that a pun you use often, or is that an unintentional pun because it did crack me up?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I think it’s actually, you know, it might be an official pun, but I think, but it really is. And that’s where you know, and when I really do, I love, I do all sorts of, you know, high school and other outreach programs. We have summer interns here just in our Canada office. We have about 20 summer interns working. We bring in, you know, over 100, 200 interns as a company across our fleet at our 12 nuclear sites. I don’t know if I mentioned that. You know, we’re not just in Pennsylvania, but we have plant in Maryland, 3 plants up in New York, 6 plants in Illinois, as well.

And so we have a being a big company, we have a lot of opportunity for folks, and it’s so neat to go talk to the young individuals, whether they’re high school students in a trade program, or they’re in a 4-year engineering degree program and talk about nuclear power. Because the difference is now also those prospective employees of the future are actually interested in green energy, and that’s something that actually interests them. They’re coming to talk to us about what we do, which isn’t something that was happening back in the 80’s, 90’s, you know, people looking to get into nuclear power. And so that is a really nice thing. 

And then the other big area that we’re really supportive of is, you know, we have a lot of veterans who work for us. You know, obviously, the Navy is a big user of nuclear technologies, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers, and so the training and the skills that people build in the nuclear industry, in the nuclear navy are directly transferable to our workforce. And unfortunately, there are actually high demand, you know, for people coming out of the Navy nuclear programs to go into all sorts of industries because of the skills that they have. And so, you know, a good portion of our workforce would, you know, initially gone to nuclear power through the navy, which is a great option for folks to start their career and get some training that can translate into an industry afterward.

Erik Gudmundson: The Navy aside, I’m gonna ask you a 3 part question. But the Navy aside, I’m curious if there’s this particular spot that you like to find new candidates where it’s just always a great well around here in this local area of where you’d find candidates, whether it’s a workforce of tomorrow or just, you know, people that are currently in the workforce. Are you hiring? And if people are interested in jobs, where should they go?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. 1, I can’t recommend enough people going to [constellationenergy.com]. We have a whole section on their careers, and it outlays all our facilities, the job types that we have. You know, it’s not just also technical. You know, we have folks on the business side of our company. Our company, a huge part of our company is actually selling our power and working with customers to line them up with the power they need, and that’s one of the big things we bring to the table as well. So, just all sorts of different career opportunities, and you’ll find them at [constellationenergy.com]. So, we absolutely are hiring.

And the big source of the, well for the technical and the trades, we do rely heavily on our internship programs. We really like bringing folks in, you know, in their formative years with their education to really understand what we do. We can, you know, when we bring, when we onboard them as interns, we talk almost like it’s a two-way interview. We really want them to learn as much about them as we wanna learn about them. We want them to choose us because we think it’s a good fit. They’re energized about having a career with us. So we have a lot of interns who are coming out of 4-year engineering programs at major colleges, and so that’s always a consistent pipeline for our engineering staff. 

And then trade schools, local trade schools, Williamson, Thaddeus Stevens out in Lancaster for some of the local ones. Some of the folks know those names, but we really try to partner with them. We have lots of technicians who have worked 20, 30, 40-year careers coming out of those trade schools, and they’re very good ambassadors, and they love going back and helping with recruiting and mentoring, you know, and so, you know, we’re always willing to if there’s a career fair at a local school to send people to help do mock interviews, and help support their folks’ development too, just to help ready people to enter the workforce because that really is the best pipeline. Folks, we really do want folks who have a really good strong technical interest, we’re able to demonstrate that and get involved. 

But we also have the ability to onboard people in, you know, in more junior roles. Like, we have a huge security workforce at our sites, and we see people take career paths. They come in in security. They’re very good, smart technical people. They find something that interests them, and next thing you know, they’re a trained technician in our maintenance department, or they work in the business operations department in the site or project management.

So that’s one unique thing. I get to see, you know, the community at a site with all these different department skills. We really have the opportunity to train and help develop people in different departments.

Liam Dempsey: Given that power plants aren’t necessarily, they don’t lend themselves to remote work, how are you attracting employees to come in to work for somewhere like Peach Bottom which isn’t necessarily close to a big city or urban area? The kinds of things that might attract a younger workforce.

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I think that’s a huge part of our workforce development. You know, we have a physical power plant that people have to be at 24 hours a day, 7 days a week operating and maintaining it. You know, so we do have a contingent of our workforce that shift workers, and provide those critical functions. Then we have our maintenance staff, who are on-site, you know, physically touching and putting their hands on plant equipment, our security workforce, you know, our engineers. 

So the number one thing that we have to really be cognizant of is being flexible wherever possible. So COVID was rough initially and very scary for us like it was for everybody. You know, large and small businesses alike how are we gonna navigate this? And we originally were, you know, I remember when COVID came out being sent home with a little letter that I could use because we were worried them shutting down the roads, and you have to have a letter with you from the company explaining how your job is satisfied as a critical industry, and you’ve got permission from the governor to travel on the roads, go to work.

And so fortunately, it didn’t get that extreme for us, but what really opened our eyes was, hey. A good portion of our jobs that are, you know, done by professional staff, you know, where folks are either in a cubicle or spend most of their time working on a computer, they absolutely can do some remote work. And that’s how we operated all through COVID. So a good portion of our, employees were remote work. We brought them on-site for critical functions, you know, when you know, for what we called the moments that matter. Hey. If you need to be on-site, you know, the example would be an engineer who’s able to do a lot of their job remotely, but they got to, get on plan to go put their eyes on some equipment. They would come in and put their eyes on the equipment and support the folks who are on-site doing their portion of the work. 

So that is, I think, a unique nature of our businesses. Not every job is exactly the same as far as the amount of flexibility you can have when it comes to remote work. And fitting people up with that. So it is really important, and we see the value in having people in person on-site, even professional staff or office workers to be there together because we do have other folks who touch the plan or physically on the plan every day and need that interaction. You have to have that ability to go put your eyes on things and see things. So we are striking that balance, and we check and adjust probably just like every company does to make sure we’re meeting our employees’ needs because we also have to stay competitive and have jobs. 

But I was talking to some of our interns who are working here locally at the Kennett office, and we brought them down to Peach Bottom and up to Limerick for a tour. And I said, you know, there’s nothing like walking around a power plant. There’s something neat about showing up at the place that’s putting out, you know, 26,100 megawatts onto the grid every day. And so I think that is something that really does attract people. There are lots of people who love to work for their hands, love to get into a power plant and go see neat things, big pieces of equipment, learn new stuff, and that’s something unique that we do provide. You know, our power plants, have a lot of opportunity for somebody like an engineer coming in to go learn different technologies and get involved in things that are different than maybe what they studied in school. You know, for example, I’m a mechanical engineer, and I probably find myself working on lots of electrical, civil, you know, all sorts of different disciplines and topics every day, and that’s what interests me the most actually about working with. I get to learn new stuff from really smart people every day when I come to work, and, you know, that’s a little maybe a little bit different than maybe some other industries where people, you know, have a very specific cast or kind of like a product line or something that they specialize in.

Erik Gudmundson: You mentioned all the different types of skilled workers that you employ and contract with. And I, working in IT services and cyber security, I have to ask you a cyber security question because cyber security is so important to everyone now, but especially your industry. So, I’d like to know, are you doing all the things that, you know, Chester recommends businesses do, or do you add additional layers of protection? And for our listeners who don’t know, CISA is an organization, it’s the Federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and they provide a lot of best practices with good stuff that organizations can follow. But, what are you doing beyond that to keep us safe?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. I think that’s a great question. And not just IT people ask that question, Erik. So, you know, I think it’s actually something that’s on a lot of people’s minds when you talk about security and safety and nuclear power. And so, you know, that’s another great career opportunity we have is for IT professionals and it’s not just folks who, you know, work, you know, kind of in the office too, like our maintenance technicians and, you know, everybody all are familiar with and follow roles. I have engineers who work for me who are cyber security specialists, and they actually specialize in looking at the equipment we use and helping assess it and make sure we can employ it in a manner that’s safe from a cyber perspective. 

So, it really starts of, we have a huge regulatory footprint that oversees and regulates the cybersecurity programs that we have at our site. Number 1, we have a lot of regulation in that area that’s really above and beyond things like best practices. So you can really go to almost any nuclear plant in the county, and the approach we’ve taken has been a unified approach to make sure we really have a defense-in-depth and a very structured approach to cybersecurity.

So we have some pretty advanced measures that we’ve put in, and then a lot of it goes above and beyond maybe some of the cybersecurity measures that a typical business or corporation would put in place because we’re obviously just like every average company that uses all sorts of IT services and has lots of critical data that we use for our business functions. But the nuclear power facilities themselves, one of the big tenets of our cybersecurity protocols, protections, they really are essentially an idyll end of operation, and they’re physically separated to prevent any direct or indirect access to the Internet. So any system or device, lots of things that you know, people think to be normal are actually digital components nowadays. You know, our plants were originally designed with all analog technology, but we’ve transitioned. And we have a lot of components, whether, you know, it’s a small device or a large computer system, that relies on digital. 

Number 1 is keeping it physically separated so that there actually is real no connection to the Internet or anything from a network standpoint, external to our power plant. And now that we have that isolation, the other big factor is we have really strict controls around access to our plants, 1 from people, and then 2, the types of devices and things that they employ. So our extensive security screenings and training are really important. Our workforce is highly, aware and familiar with all the protocols for cybersecurity because people actually, you know, it’s anybody knows who’s in the IT industry. People are actually your biggest vulnerability and your biggest defense barrier that you can rely on to make sure your systems are safe. So, you know, people who work on digital plant equipment are under increased observation and monitoring to make sure they are really trained, they’re qualified, and they’re aware of all the protocols needed.

And, you know, the idea of like, using something like a thumb drive at the power plant, there’s a lot of training and education we do where you don’t, we don’t have the ability to use thumb drives, where you’re not and if there is a time to what we call you know, things that we call portable media, you know, we have very special scanning kiosks, all sorts of barriers and things in place for that. And it really makes it important just to make sure everybody’s really educated on all our processes and why it’s so important because I think a lot of times when you look at companies and, you know, general corporate risk about cybersecurity, a lot of it’s inadvertent access and inadvertent contact that could open the door and lead to a problem down the road, and that’s where we really have this big defense-in-depth approach. You protect the systems and the physical hardware. You physically separate it. You really train, and you have a great workforce who knows the requirements and knows what to look out for. You have great monitoring and response if you do detect an issue, and that’s all part of our cybersecurity program at the sites. And that all has, you know, special oversight and regulation and inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the regulation of the nuclear power plant. So we go through regular audits and inspections, both internally and externally on the health of those programs.

Liam Dempsey: For those who can’t see at home, Erik is nodding his head with some level of comfort. I too, am comforted by your answer, Ron, but I have to suggest that I think the screenplay writers of Hollywood are really disappointed. They’re not gonna be able to write the scene where you hack into the nuclear power plant from a helicopter.

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s always a great source of questions. There’s somebody something saw on TV. Is that possible? And it’s great. And that’s what I really recommend, folks, is if you’re interested and you have those questions, you know, there’s really great resources online.

The Nuclear Energy Institute is one of our industry organizations. [nei.org] is their website, and all the type of information that I’m having, I’m sharing is really well presented there on their website because they really want to be a spot where people can go learn about, you know, and transparently learn about the safety of a nuclear power plant because our ability to provide that claim reliable energy relies on the confidence of the public. It goes hand in hand, and that’s why we take such high importance of our respect for the environment, respect for safety, personnel safety, spectral security, and physical security, and cybersecurity because we really need to maintain that public trust in our technology, and the people who work on it have a lot of pride. And so having that partnership is just so critical for us.

Erik Gudmundson: And we’ll be sure to include links to the websites and resources that you shared. Ron, we are running out of time, but I do have a question that I wanna ask of you. Constellation has been a committed supporter of a number of organizations and businesses and the in Southern Chester County. But I wonder, is there a local business or a nonprofit that you think more folks should know about?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. You know, one that comes to mind, and now it’s just another great example of the value we get out of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce is there really is an opportunity for somebody like me who works for a very big company to really learn and get to actually know the people behind the local charities and organizations in our community. And I think the more folks that learn about them, you get to meet the people and see physically what they do, just the more support, you can have so you know one of the great ones is Tick Tock Early Learning Center, who, you know, really fills a critical role for early childhood education in the community. Susan Czerwin there is the Executive Director. She recently received an award from the Southern Chester County Chapter of the United Way. You know, I had a chance to talk about what Tick Tock Early Learning Center does and get just the dedicated staff that they have providing early childhood education that’s accessible and affordable in their community. There are things like that where when you take a step back and you look at the total investment in our community and where as a community should we be looking to invest if we care about our future. You know, focusing our attention on early childhood education.

It’s been talking with her and meeting folks from Tick Tock that really opened my eyes and you really talk about, you know, how do you set up children and families for success? I talk about like, brightening, you know, our future, really brightening their future and realizing the benefits downstream because the benefits downstream of investing in early childhood education, what setting children up for success to succeed in elementary school and beyond, and it just cascades downhill and really supporting working families who that’s one of the biggest needs and demands that everybody know everybody knows is finding, you know, early education and support for childcare. And so, if folks are looking for a really fantastic organization to look up online, and look up something about whether you’re looking for the opportunity to donate or get involved with community service, I really recommend you look up Tick Tock Early Learning Center.

Erik Gudmundson: Ron DiSabatino, Vice President of Nuclear Engineering with Constellation, where can listeners connect with you and learn more about all the things you discussed on today’s episode?

Ron DiSabatino: Yeah. Number 1, our website,[ constellationenergy.com], it’s a fantastic source, whether you’re looking to learn about our facilities, about clean energy, or our company vision. Careers is a big one, so I’ll put that plug in there again as well. 

And then if you’re just interested in nuclear power, I can’t recommend enough, [nei.org], the nuclearenergyinstitute.org. Not only do they have great information, they’ve got great visuals, videos, and things like that, that can help navigate and really find facts and the real sources behind those facts, which I think is always important when you’re looking up stuff online. 

So, the Department of Energy has a great website dedicated to nuclear power and the facts associated with it as well. I think those are all really great sources for folks who are interested in hopping on Google and learning a little bit more.

Liam Dempsey: Thanks for joining us today, Ron. I really love your energy.

Ron DiSabatino: Thank you very much. It was my pleasure.

Erik Gudmundson: Thank you to my co-host, Liam Dempsey. I’m Erik Gudmundson. 

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