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A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

nrc.gov

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Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That'd be a very interesting statement if you were qualified to make it

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That'd be a very interesting statement if you were qualified to make it

[flagged]

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aussie surfer here, the stings typically are uncomfortable. Some of the deadlier ones can be close to painless and only result in itching and result in you dying from respiratory failure 24 hours later. Others are downright painful with even strong opiate based pain killers struggling to cut through the pain.

Is the deadly itchy one of those tiny box jellyfish? More than sharks or crocs, this is why I was an absolute coward and decided not to get in the water in Queensland. There are lots of ways to die, but I'd prefer not to blame myself in my last moments.

Oceans are dangerous, but it's the water that's most likely to get you, even in Australia.

If you ever become prime Minister of Australia, and find yourself on an oceanside bombing range, don't go spear fishing.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#155

> Non Emergency I guess in a nuclear reactor there is a lingual shift and the word emergency cant be used for just any old 911 call. Like how Australians apparently call a jellyfish bite "uncomfortable"

A bite requires teeth. Sharks bite. Snakes bite. Bees and wasps sting. Jellyfish and bluebottles sting. Not sure about spiders. Are their fangs considered to be teeth? Platypus have venomous spurs, not sure what that’s called.

Mosquitos bite with their nose.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#157
post #113

“worker fell off roof installing solar panels” — just getting ahead of the ‘anti-nuclear’ folks on here. Energy installations all come with risks, albeit nuclear long tail accidents are mutli-generational and externalised to people not involved in managing the risk

That happens all the time; it's only news when something unusual happens.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#158

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…

>Is there any legitimate reason to report CPM instead of dose after a contamination event?

Basically, the procedures for certain environments differ. If you want to gather dosage data, you use a dosimeter. If you want a binary Yes/No method of detecting contamination, you use a geiger counter and determine if the count rate is above a certain range (depending on background radiation and other factors).

The 300CPM metric just indicates whether they're clean or not after they've been scrubbed down. It doesn't measure the dose they took.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That'd be a very interesting statement if you were qualified to make it

[deleted]

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be a very interesting statement if you were qualified to make it

[flagged]

I care enough that I would trust assessment of their health and condition only to qualified professionals with access to the relevant information, just like anyone else that I care about
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