Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

nrc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 545 posts

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#141

Post by antonvs »

pembrook wrote: post #92
ang_cire wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally no amount of incident reporting is excessive when it comes to nuclear power. Not just because of the safety of the plant itself, but because so much is reliant on it. It's important to identify even small defects or incidents so that patterns can be noticed before they turn into larger issues. You see the same breaker tripping at 3x the rate of other ones, and even though maybe nothing was damaged you now k…

Aaaand it’s this alarmist attitude which is why we don’t have abundant cheap nuclear energy. Sea-drilling rigs (oil) have far more potential for environmental damage than modern nuclear plants Yet they have no federal public register for when a worker falls overboard (an incident far more likely to result in death).

> Sea-drilling rigs (oil) have far more potential for environmental damage than modern nuclear plants

Key word: "modern". A key aspect of a modern nuclear plant, that supports its high level of safety, is the required incident reporting and followup.

The relevant issue is not really about a single worker being injured or dying. It's about detecting safety issues which could lead to a catastrophe far beyond what a sea oil drilling rig can, at least when it comes to human life and habitability of the surrounding area.

For example, after Chernobyl, much of Europe had to deal with contamination from cesium 137.

The entire planet's geological history shows when the nuclear age started, because humans are irresponsible in aggregate. (See also global warming.)

> Aaaand it’s this alarmist attitude ...

You're providing an object lesson in why humans can't really be trusted to operate systems like this over the long term.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#142

Post by arthurcolle »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #137
arthurcolle wrote: post #108

300 CPM in hair after decontamination is a massive red flag. If this is from systemic circulation, could be GBq-level total body activity. The non-emergency classification is bureaucratic nonsense. This is an internal contamination event with unknown but potentially severe consequences.

A CPM value means nothing without additional context. Counts vary based on detector type and size, radiation type, energy, distance and geometry, all sorts of things. They're not comparable except in identical contexts. This is why the Sievert exists as a unit. As a general rule, falling into a reactor pool is probably fine, as long as you don't reach the bottom. (But please don't try it.) There's even an XKCD "What…

Thank you for the followup (familiar with the XKCD)

Dumb question from a true non-expert:

So CPM varies with all those factors you mention, but wouldn't the site HP team know exactly what detector they used, the geometry, distance, etc.? They could convert to dose if they wanted, right?

Why report the ambiguous "300 CPM" instead of an actual dose estimate in mSv/μSv? Seems like that would be more useful for any medical team, any set of potential regulators or regulatory bodies as well as just general public understanding (drawing on my father's work here as he always emphasized the tension between "public fears radiation unnecessarily" and "industry safety protocols are inconsistent")

Follow-up: Is there any legitimate reason to report CPM instead of dose after a contamination event? Or does staying with CPM keep things conveniently vague? Because from my limited understanding, if they did a proper survey, they have everything needed to calculate dose.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#143

Post by arthurcolle »

C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote: post #139
arthurcolle wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain the complete archive of every publication my father did from 1969 to 2019 and continue to update the archive based on new publications. I use the data to train Nuclear Radiochemistry AI Agents and while I do not have my father's credentials, I actively use this dataset to learn about his field, and from my limited knowledge here I felt the need to comment. After all, what is skepticism if we can't share an…

> I use the data to train Nuclear Radiochemistry AI Agents and [...] As someone who is not involved in this ongoing discussion, I have to just say that invoking LLM agents when asked for credentials is not going to go in your favor.

My use case for data that exists that is pre-AI scientifically vetted work is completely divorced from the specifics of this conversation actually. If I want to do paper-maché sculptures with printouts of these papers, and I still commented on this post, would that be better or worse for you, here?

I was just sharing background. I want to make good models that can help scientists do work. Your personal feelings about LLMs and their capabilities feels quite distinct from the focus on this post, and the chain of comments that have led us here.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#144

Post by LeoPanthera »

arthurcolle wrote: post #142
LeoPanthera wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CPM value means nothing without additional context. Counts vary based on detector type and size, radiation type, energy, distance and geometry, all sorts of things. They're not comparable except in identical contexts. This is why the Sievert exists as a unit. As a general rule, falling into a reactor pool is probably fine, as long as you don't reach the bottom. (But please don't try it.) There's even an XKCD "What…

Thank you for the followup (familiar with the XKCD) Dumb question from a true non-expert: So CPM varies with all those factors you mention, but wouldn't the site HP team know exactly what detector they used, the geometry, distance, etc.? They could convert to dose if they wanted, right? Why report the ambiguous "300 CPM" instead of an actual dose estimate in mSv/μSv? Seems like that would be more useful for any medic…

I would imagine the on-site team would know, yes. I don't know why the report only gives a measurement in CPM, but just because the person was sent off-site doesn't mean the levels were dangerous. Thresholds at nuclear facilities tend to be very low for safety.

The USNRC is currently not operating normally due to the government shutdown. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#145

Post by arthurcolle »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #140
arthurcolle wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain the complete archive of every publication my father did from 1969 to 2019 and continue to update the archive based on new publications. I use the data to train Nuclear Radiochemistry AI Agents and while I do not have my father's credentials, I actively use this dataset to learn about his field, and from my limited knowledge here I felt the need to comment. After all, what is skepticism if we can't share an…

So you don't have the necessary credentials, and you still wouldn't be qualified to comment even if you did have them unless you had access to the internal data. But no worries, I'm sure you'd be OK getting surgery from a surgeon's son who never went to medical school nor read your chart.

But I am not doing surgery. I am expressing skepticism at the "oh no it's all fine" from literally everyone reporting on this story

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#146

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

robviren wrote: post #83

I greatly appreciate the nuclear industry. Nuclear field engineering was my first "real" job out of college and they really committ to safety. Transparency in this industry is inspiring because everyone involved knows that one screw up and that's the end of the US nuclear industry. Good luck getting oil and gas to be accountable and as transparent about incidents. I carry the culture into the rest of my work and appr…

Can you recommend a book or two in order to learn about that culture? IMO we could use more of it in AI.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#147

Post by not_kurt_godel »

arthurcolle wrote: post #145
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't have the necessary credentials, and you still wouldn't be qualified to comment even if you did have them unless you had access to the internal data. But no worries, I'm sure you'd be OK getting surgery from a surgeon's son who never went to medical school nor read your chart.

But I am not doing surgery. I am expressing skepticism at the "oh no it's all fine" from literally everyone reporting on this story

Yep you know better than the people who have the credentials you don't and the access to internal data you don't. I don't see what's holding you back from doing surgery, qualifications and context are no barrier to the application of your self-imagined expertise.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#149

Post by arthurcolle »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #147
arthurcolle wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I am not doing surgery. I am expressing skepticism at the "oh no it's all fine" from literally everyone reporting on this story

Yep you know better than the people who have the credentials you don't and the access to internal data you don't. I don't see what's holding you back from doing surgery, qualifications and context are no barrier to the application of your self-imagined expertise.

I don't claim to know better. But restarting a $1.5B plant after 2 years of inactivity and having a worker fall into a vat of radioactive water and still being at 300 CPM after a decontamination procedure is not normal.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#150

Post by feminintendo »

slicktux wrote: post #67

I’ve heard of people falling into the spent fuel pool but never the reactor pool. Usually there are strict FME barriers in place and one cannot even look over into the pool without violating the FME. I wonder what led to the event? Definitely an OSHA recordable!

This is not true at all. I have personally looked into a reactor pool. I remember thinking how easy it would be to literally just jump in. I mean, I'd trip about a thousand alarms and probably end up in prison, but....
Post reply on HN