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

461–470 of 545 posts

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#461

Post by lavela »

drysart wrote: post #302
lavela wrote: post #259

These are quite a few reports for one day for a technology we purportedly have under full control, nothing to worry.

Which do you consider as being under better control: a technology that we exhaustively create reports on even in the face of incidents like this where the only real chance of harm was that the guy couldn't swim and might have drowned; or a technology where we don't report on anything at all whatsoever and thus have no idea what's actually going on? Reports don't mean danger, and they don't mean lack of control. Repor…

Of the eight reports I only see one that relates to a guy being able to swim or not (and I suspect the same is true for the estimated 1400 reports so far this year). Also having transparency is obviously good and I don't understand what you want to prove with arguing that a worse situation would be worse. It clearly would be worse.

I'm also not totally against nuclear, in case you are suspecting that. I do think though, that we as a society aren't at the point where we have the ability to completely control such technology, contrary to what proponents of much higher utilization of nuclear like to claim. Reports of fuses seemingly without failover or stolen equipment seem to support that argument.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#462

Post by datahack »

fwipsy wrote: post #338
haskellshill wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power plants really work. It's really not that dangerous to fall into the water.

Hey, no need to be condescending. Some people just haven't read [the xkcd.]( https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ )

I feel like you’re citing the primary source material for the vast majority of us. Like, “let me find the thing that original taught me how to think about radiation pools. Ah yes, this xkcd. Yep, here’s the manual.”

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#463

Post by causality0 »

amarant wrote: post #444
sroussey wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re in the water, you may get a few feet less of that protection. Particularly if you swim down.

According to Randall Munroe, you'd actually experience less radiation about a metre under the water in a spent fuel pool then you do walking down the street. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ On a tangent, I kinda love the fact that I've learned more about nuclear physics, orbital mechanics, and relativistic speeds from a poorly drawn webcomic than I have from any other source. (Ok KSP might actually have xkcd beat on orb…

It made me very sad when he stopped regularly writing those.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#464

Post by lazide »

trhway wrote: post #425
iterance wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your fact checking was not successful: there is no typical background expressed in counts. Background count rates vary globally by significant amounts, but importantly, they vary by device. Some devices may get a measly 10-20 counts per minute in a background, next to another device that could get 500. It also matters what kind of radiation the device is configured to detect. At any rate 300 is widely recognizable as…

>but importantly, they vary by device. Of course it varies for "civilian" devices from EBay. They put that count into NRC report. It means that it has pretty specific calibrated meaning for that regulated environment. >However, even if we accept 100 as the background CPM value, 300 on 100 does not represent significant contamination in a typical environment (but does imply some occurred). report mentions 300 clearly…

CPM has no calibrated amount by itself.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#465

Post by ninju »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #414
sunrunner wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the main risk was from being shot by the guards before you made it to the pool?

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. See https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ “But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool. “In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”

So death by acute lead poisoning :-)

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#466

Post by pembrook »

ByteDrifter wrote: post #313

Incidents like this show that “nuclear safety” is as much cultural as technical. Even the best systems fail when people and organizations stop treating the environment with the respect it demands.

This harmless incident shows us nothing aside from why nuclear is so expensive.

There is essentially zero risk to the operation of the plant (or this worker!) from such an event.

Imagine if oil and gas facilities were required for any worker fall to have federal government workers visit onsite, draft a report for review, have it examined by expensive niche lawyers with rounds of revisions, and then have it published it publicly.

This is just a silly example of the hysterical safety-ism involving anything nuclear-related in the US.

Yes, working in any job related to energy carries risks. Just ask a roughneck, lineman, or wind turbine installer.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#467

Post by jojobas »

mlindner wrote: post #326
jojobas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water itself is activated by neutrons, even if slightly.

How? Neutrons slamming into water would break it apart, turn it into hydrogen and oxygen, and possibly activate the hydrogen into deuterium or tritium. But once it's hydrogen (or an isotope of it) it'll turn gaseous and be filtered off.

In order to become gaseous they need to combine with another atom of the same kind torn free, which is about as likely as combining with a free atom of another kind, form an HO radical and stay liquid.

Tritiated water is a reality of reactor pools.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#469

Post by nvahalik »

Galanwe wrote: post #468

I'm not literate at all on nuclear physics, but I remember in the "Chernobyl" TV show (which seemed trustworthy) some divers died after going in the cooling water to close the pumps. How was that water different ?

I watched the show but if I remember correctly they actually didn’t die. They survived.

> The reality is much more positive than the myth, with all three men escaping such a grisly fate. Indeed, Alexei Ananenko and Valeri Bespalov are believed to be both still alive as of 2024, while Boris Baranov lived until 2005 when he passed away from heart disease.

Source: https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-the-cher...

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#470

Post by Quarrelsome »

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!

was this place one of those who suffered firings as a result of the government shutdown? I believe at least 1,000 employs at nuclear facilities have been fired.
Post reply on HN