Imre Pásztor:Knowledge sharing is an elementary interest

Book experiences have always played a crucial role in Imre Pásztor's life, and today there is hardly a day when he doesn't read something before going to sleep. The most memorable book from his primary school days was The Lynx Looking at the Sun, about the life of Galileo. He was fascinated by the courage of this Renaissance scientist, a rival of mythological heroes, and then by Leonardo da Vinci, whose ideas and creative engineering inventions were ahead of his time and still amaze us today.

Having abandoned his dreams of archaeology, history and other sciences that hark back to the past, he enrolled in a physics high school.

During her high school years, astronomy opened up a magical world for her, and she and a friend dreamed of becoming great exploratory astronomers and being the first to solve the three-body problem, the Holy Grail of astronomy, analytically. And then came another book experience that changed everything radically, and set him on the path he is on to this day: the book Magephysics for Everyone by Muhin. He was enchanted by the invisible world of particles, the diversity of particles and all the exciting science that lay behind it.

Ammunition from Moscow

He did not find any of the domestic universities attractive in every respect, but then he found out that among the options available abroad at the time there was a university in Moscow where he could study nuclear physics in Nuclear Power and Equipment, and he applied. The following years at university were obviously formative in many ways. Not only did it provide him with knowledge that gave him unique opportunities - and he did not fully realise this at the time - but it also opened up a world that would otherwise have remained forever hidden from him. He came to understand a people with a completely different way of thinking, an unusually different society, and more than one, for he lived in close communion not only with Russians but with all the foreign students - German, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, even Vietnamese, and the most interesting and lovable of all, the Cubans.

For five and a half years, the university has provided an interesting theoretical - reactor, neutron, thermophysics priority - and practical education, including engine design, heat exchanger design and even welding practice. In the end, they received a hybrid body of knowledge that was nuclear-specific, but which essentially gave them the ammunition they needed to get started in many areas of engineering, even in the then burgeoning field of computer science.

He finished his university studies as the construction of the Paks nuclear power plant was nearing completion. He was just able to get involved in the commissioning of units 3 and 4. At that time, Russian specialists were already preparing to return home and a young generation of Hungarian engineers had grown up who were able to take over the work on the units.

A pioneering era with exciting challenges

Of course, there was still a lot to learn, as one by one, children's illnesses and deficiencies appeared, which meant a lot of challenges. "I was very lucky to be part of the engineering team set up at the plant, which was tasked with solving problems in the border areas. As well as being responsible for the technical-economical monitoring of the units, periodic efficiency measurements, we also prepared daily, weekly and monthly summary reports for management. But the most exciting part was solving unexpected problems that arose. For example, I had the opportunity to learn the methodology of the investment-efficiency analysis for the turbine reconstruction, but it was also at that time that we started to introduce probabilistic safety analysis. We also regularly had to carry out thermohydraulic analyses to identify the causes of various current anomalies. It was a truly pioneering period, with exciting challenges and opportunities for development", he recalls. He even got a taste of teaching, because he was asked to teach thermal science at the then fledgling ESZI, a job he enjoyed because a significant proportion of the students who were there later went on to work at the power station, so he could teach his future colleagues.

His career was radically changed by a post-graduate course at Brunel University, where he was introduced to the teaching methodology of an English university and learned very useful things in the fields of management theory, finance and accounting, business law, etc.

„In the early nineties, the world was in turmoil, and we also began a smooth transition to a market economy. This had an impact on me in that, armed with the knowledge I had gained at my new school, I thought: if PAV¹ needs my newly acquired skills, I will stay, but if not, I will try my hand at the emerging private sector,” he says. As he reveals, the latter came to pass, and so he spent twenty years working primarily with maintenance and radiation protection technologies, mainly in the energy and chemical industries. This was also a very useful learning experience, as it allowed him to see the other side of the coin in the economic world, having previously viewed economic processes from the perspective of a customer. He managed to build a profitable business, which is still operating today, but is now run by someone else. Then came the moment when things started to pick up speed and most of his tasks became routine. According to the chief engineer, this is inevitable, and when this happens, it is time to make a change, because habit has a counterproductive effect on problem-solving skills, and routine stifles creativity.

The trunk number 23

It was in this situation that he found the opportunity he had secretly hoped for a little earlier to return to his profession, with another chance to participate in the construction of a nuclear power plant. His tribe number was 23, one of the first to take on the wide-ranging tasks of building the new nuclear power plant. He was first appointed Head of Department in the Nuclear Division. In 2019, he was appointed to lead the project for the preparation, approval and submission for licensing of the application for a construction licence. He is currently working in the Directorate of Engineering as Chief Engineer in charge of cross-disciplinary technical tasks. He was delighted to accept the invitation to return to his early days, when he had a wide range of interesting and varied tasks within a similarly broad framework at the nuclear power plant. Now, in addition to carrying out ad hoc tasks on a small scale, he is responsible for manoeuvring plans and analyses, managing availability and reliability data and indicators, and environmental certification issues, among others.

In addition, it seeks to play an active role in building and maintaining the company's international contacts and channelling information relevant to the project.

Knowledge sharing is an elementary interest

"From the very beginning of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, it has been recognised that this activity is not a domestic matter for countries. That is why international organisations have been created one after the other to establish common positions and disseminate the knowledge accumulated in this sector", he stresses. The chief technical engineer of the Paks II. Zrt. is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency's committee responsible for the development and approval of safety guidelines, the most prominent and most prominent organisation. The physicist-engineer has been delegated to the IAEA by the European Utility Requirements (EUR), a body run by the European nuclear operators. EUR, in whose governing body he also plays an important role, works to ensure that only nuclear power plants that meet harmonised requirements can be built in the European Union. The focus is currently on developing requirements for small modular reactors. The IAEA and EUR activities are interlinked, with each serving the other and drawing on the other's results.

"We are doing ourselves and the international community a service by sharing our knowledge. It is in the elementary interest of all actors in the sector to cooperate", he underlined, adding that Hungarian nuclear energy knowledge is recognised and in demand. The social acceptance of nuclear energy also depends to a large extent on the unity and effectiveness of international organisations, or as he puts it: "we need the members of the choir to make the voice of nuclear energy heard.