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

181–190 of 545 posts

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#181

Post by [deleted] »

lelandbatey wrote: post #52
andy99 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally consider an area dangerous if I need to undergo radiation decontamination after entering it, continue emitting radiation after decontamination, and need to seek medical attention. Maybe the nuclear regulatory bodies have differen definitions?

I think you're softly implying things are more dangerous than they actually are, possibly due to not understanding just how insanely risk averse the nuclear industry is in the US. You could jog around a reactor chamber every morning and under a "normal person's" risk tolerance, you would never, ever be exposed to any danger. That worker who fell in the reactor pool seems like they got a radiation exposure equal to ap…

[deleted]

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#182

Post by rippeltippel »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #121
happyopossum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then where did their radioactive hair come from?

That's what I was thinking, but it does look like 300 cpm for a few hours is essentially nothing, or it looks real bad, I can't tell. I found this: Days to receive chronic dose for increase cancer risk of 1 in a 1,000 432 (at 100 CPM) 86 (at 500 CPM) Ok so 300 for an hour (we'll assume the hair is cut off and the exposure either stops or 90% reduces) means no problem. Don't do that every day that's all. But it's from…

What does it mean for airline pilots? From what I read, they are exposed to more than 400 CPM thought the year.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#184

Post by speed_spread »

antonvs wrote: post #39
andy99 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally consider an area dangerous if I need to undergo radiation decontamination after entering it, continue emitting radiation after decontamination, and need to seek medical attention. Maybe the nuclear regulatory bodies have differen definitions?

"Complaining about residual radiation is for the weak." -- Lt. Worf probably

Klingon nuclear pools have springboards.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#185

Post by roenxi »

aw1621107 wrote: post #166
roenxi wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The report doesn't read like something involving 500 rem and potential death in 3 weeks. It says "Non Emergency". Can you link to this converter? It seems to be a rather key step that got handwaved. Wiki says [0] there isn't a standard on what a "count" counts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_per_minute

This website [0] gives the same numbers (300 CPM -> 500 REM). Seems like a candidate for what was used at the very least, and nothing else obviously appeared to claim a similar CPM -> REM conversion capability. Assuming this website was used, it looks like it does a naive multiplication by 5/3, which seems... simplistic? The rest of the page doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either. No indication of how the con…

I'd love to know how they got to 5/3. It also offers CPM to half-life conversion which has to be at least poorly labelled. That would imply that if two piles of different radioactive substances emit the same amount of radiation (obviously different masses in each pile) they have the same half life. That isn't the case, half life depends on what the substance is which is radiating, not the measured amount of radiation emitted.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#186

Post by lukan »

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.

I would take the advice of a surgeons son, who is also somewhat active in the field, that something sounds fishy about a operation, to further look into it. That is very different from letting him perform the surgery.

There is incentive to play down accidents. No idea what happened here, I actually rather think it recived publicity because falling into a nuclear reactor pool sounds way more dramatic than it is, but ... not my area. Still was happy to get arthurcolle's input.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#189

Post by seb1204 »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #127

Why didn't they shave off the hair and measure again before sending off to medical? They have the opportunity to report lower numbers, and would enable identifying non-hair-adsorbed radiatioactive matter on the subject. It sounds so easy and actionable it boggles the mind that it's not part of the protocol.

I thought this as well but given some other comments the measures numbers are open to interpretation/ spread. Also it could be considered a violation of the person's body if done without his consent.
Post reply on HN