Inside Browns Ferry

Exploring Nuclear Energy at TVA's Largest Plant

The first time Destin Sandlin saw Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, he was gazing out of an airplane window, high above the north Alabama landscape.

Even from afar, the massive structure grabbed his attention.

“Man, that’s some big infrastructure,” he thought.

A Huntsville, Alabama native, Sandlin is the creator and host of the YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day," where he unpacks the world of science and engineering. He started the channel in 2007 and has since amassed nearly 12 million subscribers.

His unfiltered curiosity has led him to explore a host of topics – everything from the physics of cats landing on their feet to the supersonic speeds of an F-16 fighter jet.

In one of his most recent videos exploring nuclear energy, Sandlin visited Browns Ferry for an inside look at how the nuclear plant helps meet the energy needs of 10 million Valley-region residents.

Destin Sandlin, creator and host of the YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day," with radiation protection trainer Tim Lawson during a visit to Browns Ferry.

What inspired you to visit Browns Ferry?

I've been wanting to do a nuclear power plant video for a really, really long time.

I was invited out to tour Idaho National Labs, and I made a lot of really cool videos out there. But I wanted to tour a nuclear power plant first before I released a lot of those videos for the nuclear power deep-dive series on "Smarter Every Day." We knew that we wanted to tour a nuclear plant in order to kick off that series, and we knew Browns Ferry was the right place to do it.

When did you first learn about TVA and its impact?

I didn't really know about the inner workings of nuclear plants, but TVA is something I've always known about – and one of my good friends works at Browns Ferry. He and I started our careers at about the same time. I worked for the government, for the Army, and (he) worked for the government for TVA. We kept in touch all the time throughout the years.

And growing up, the man across the street worked at TVA – I believe he was a civil engineer who worked at Browns Ferry. It’s a pillar of the community for sure, not only on the infrastructure side but also on the employment side.

What were some of the big takeaways from your tour?

I liked nuclear power because of its track record of being so safe. It’s just very impressive how much energy can be created in such a safe way. So I knew I liked it, but after learning about the inner workings of the reactor I gained even more respect for how everything works.

I also gained respect for the operators of the plant. They have an incredible amount of education and professionalism about them.  I was able to sit in on a test that they did where they ran a simulation. I was blown away at the intelligence that went into the design of the plan.

One thing that I found really interesting in the boiling water reactor is that, as the steam kind of nucleates on the outside of the fuel bundles and rises up inside the core – you have water down at the bottom of the core, then you have bubbles rising up – those bubbles turn into steam toward the top and it does many, many things.

So, it's interesting because your reactivity is higher down where you have water moderation, but as the steam rises, it's a self-regulating system. Even though the reactor may be heating up a whole lot, the fact that there's steam up there makes it where the neutrons are no longer moderated, and the reactivity goes down.

There’s no way I could have strung together that sentence before going to Browns Ferry and talking to the smart people out there.

How does 'Smarter Every Day' inspire future engineers?

I think it's one of those things where, if a student knows the option is available, often they get very interested in it and they'll want to pursue it.

The role I see "Smarter Every Day" playing in society is almost like an introduction to interesting fields that students can go into. A lot of people might not know that a nuclear reactor operator is a job option for them. What I hope to do is introduce people to that nuclear engineering position or something like that.

There are so many career fields that people are not aware of. They might just look like words on a piece of paper, but once you see somebody doing the job and you see the fire in their eyes and how excited they are about going to work every day, that is a really interesting thing and that's what I hope to introduce to the general public.

The team at Browns Ferry hosted Sandlin for his most recent YouTube video.

PHOTO AT TOP OF PAGE: Sandlin and Lawson at Browns Ferry.