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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

#491

Post by goodpoint »

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.”

...only in the US.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#492

Post by roenxi »

kelnos wrote: post #436
refulgentis wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think both "sides" aren't looking great here. On one side you have someone quoting the article with a fact that doesn't mean what they think it means (the level of radiation reported is safe; the person in question is being sent for medical attention more for process's sake and an overabundance of caution), and the other side is being incredibly uncharitable and rude when it comes to calling people out for being ig…

If we're talking broader "sides" the mistaken one does look pretty bad. Fantasising doom based on facts someone doesn't understand while having those facts clarified is a bad look. It'd be like me going through a thread politely hyperventilating about trace dihydrogen monoxide contamination the man was exposed to after this event was all over. One hand there is no reason to be rude about that sort of mistake, but on the other it is kind of a ... why the comment based on a very terse paragraph that they have to know they don't understand? When there are a lot of comments pointing out that there is no evidence to believe this report is a problem.

The paragraph says 300 CPM and the dude took a non-emergency trip to a medical centre. If someone doesn't know what 300 CPM means or what a non-emergency trip to a medical centre from an industrial site implies, the best message to be given is "don't comment or form an opinion, leave it to the people who are happy to look up CPM on Wikipedia before deciding to panic, people who've worked on industrial sites or maybe even experts". Not encouraging them to talk more.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#493

Post by twelvedogs »

motorest wrote: post #252
smokel wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be empirically sound, but it does not make a priori sense that exercising a body will improve it. If I use almost any object in the universe frequently, it typically degrades rather than improves. The health benefits of exercise are most likely due to improved blood flow and related physiological effects. In principle, pills could theoretically achieve similar outcomes by enhancing circulation or other under…

> It might be empirically sound, but it does not make a priori sense that exercising a body will improve it. If I use almost any object in the universe frequently, it typically degrades rather than improves. Rejecting all evidence, denying observations, and leaning heavily on half-baked hypothesis that culminate somehow on a gotcha. That sounds an awful lot like something someone who "does their own research" would s…

i kinda see where he's coming from, wear and tear on joints and such

however any kind of "pill" that would have anywhere near the same health effects as exercise is decades away at least.

hips and knees acls tend to be a failure point but the non-existance of said "pill" is probably a fairly big tick for the excercise side, and our tech for repairing those failure points continues to progress at speed

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#494

Post by jaakl »

dtgriscom wrote: post #320
Applejinx wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because water blocks radioactivity. It's like the opposite of the Fallout games and their radioactive water: you would have to swim right down to the radioactive material and wrap yourself around it at which point you'd basically melt.

Water blocks alpha, beta and gamma rays, but the water itself can carry radioactive elements, which I'd guess was the source of this (relatively minor) contamination.

Reactor h2o itself does not carry radiation, but any extra molecules in tend to do it, thats the reason why the water is as clean you can get, over-distilled. This by itself means that it is not potable (btw for disposal to environment it gets re-salinated), so they told the story of professor drinking it must be an urban myth. It is bad even for skin expose (swimming in it), but hopefully that worker got just a few seconds expose and is well. Source: training trip in a nuclear center.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#495

Post by refulgentis »

roenxi wrote: post #492
kelnos wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both "sides" aren't looking great here. On one side you have someone quoting the article with a fact that doesn't mean what they think it means (the level of radiation reported is safe; the person in question is being sent for medical attention more for process's sake and an overabundance of caution), and the other side is being incredibly uncharitable and rude when it comes to calling people out for being ig…

If we're talking broader "sides" the mistaken one does look pretty bad. Fantasising doom based on facts someone doesn't understand while having those facts clarified is a bad look. It'd be like me going through a thread politely hyperventilating about trace dihydrogen monoxide contamination the man was exposed to after this event was all over. One hand there is no reason to be rude about that sort of mistake, but on…

Relax.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#496

Post by dumbasrocks »

dlcarrier wrote: post #484
louthy wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re not that flippant, they’re ‘troubles’, indicating ’ongoing concern’ .

In American English, troubles doesn't mean anything different than trouble, so we not only miss the meaning of your protestations, but to us it seems like your downplaying it even more.

it doesn't mean anything different in American english, he said it himself - Brits consider events involving the murder of (Irish, Palestinian, etc.) civilians as ’ongoing concern(s)’

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#497

Post by afiori »

wiz21c wrote: post #490
johnisgood wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

On the picture, the fuel rods are indeed protected by a huge quantity of water above them. But what happens below them ? They seem to be in direct contact with the ground...

I would guess that in reality they are either suspended and/or there is enough concrete at the bottom

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#498

Post by simoncion »

hunterpayne wrote: post #405
simoncion wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PS Sieverts are a physical measure, Greys are a measure of biological "harm". The US's NRC disagrees with you. From [0], they say this about the sievert and rem: Dose equivalent A measure of the biological damage to living tissue as a result of radiation exposure. Also known as the " biological dose," the dose equivalent is calculated as the product of absorbed dose in tissue multiplied by a quality factor and then…

No, you are just confused about the technical jargon being used. That text is written for people who have had this jargon hammered into them and is very confusing to people who haven't. This is why people are told to not try to do the calculations themselves. "Dose absorbed" is a physical measure of ionizing radiation that is directed at something. That's measured in rems or sieverts (or Grays, notice the spelling).…

> Dose equivalent" is a medical measure of the risk caused by that "Dose absorbed". That's measured in Greys (with an E, not an A).

Neither the NRC nor the EPA nor the NIH nor the NRC seems to know about the "Grey". Everyone in the US seems to know about the "Gray" (abbreviated as "Gy"), which is used to measure dose and doesn't factor in biological harm.

What country uses the "Grey" unit? What's the abbreviation of the "Grey" unit? Would you point to credible sources for the answers to those two questions?

> "Dose equivalent" goes farther and is meant to calculate medical risk to a living person.

Yes. That's biological harm. Getting hit on the skin from outside your body with a large amount of alpha radiation is far less harmful than getting hit with the same amount of gamma radiation. AFAICT, "dose equivalent" is measured in Sv or rems.

If you can demonstrate a credible source for the "Grey" unit, then I can dismiss this as a time-wasting misunderstanding, but I've yet to see any reference to a "Grey" unit of radiation exposure.

> Its literally lower than the natural background radiation [at some places on earth]...

Yep. ALARA is a scourge. And I -too- have read Admiral Whatshisface's open letter from the 1980's or 1990's or whenever about how the regulation of the civilian nuclear energy program is batshit nuts by way of being negligently overcautious.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#499

Post by simoncion »

hunterpayne wrote: post #228
simoncion wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yeah I used the an average instrument specific rate. Would you provide a link to the source of this average instrument specific rate? I'm interested in knowing which instruments designed to detect low-to-medium-level radiation sources on a human are configured so that five detections per second would equate to a "You're fucking dead; there's really no hope for you" dose. (Did you ask an LLM to "convert counts per m…

You need a device that can measure the different types of radiation. Then you have to do a bunch of calculations to estimate absorption. Only then can you calculate Greys which is the measurement that matters. PS 300 CPM is nothing. There are places where people live where the natural background radiation is higher than that. Also, background radiation is mostly Gamma rays which is more dangerous than what comes off…

> PS 300 CPM is nothing.

That depends on the instrument. It's an instrument-specific rate. I'd say that saying "300 CPM is nothing" absent any information other than the CPM is foolish.

As I indicated earlier, given all of the other context we have, we can reasonably suppose that 300 CPM from whichever instrument was used in this incident is nothing to be concerned about.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#500

Post by ramchip »

jaakl wrote: post #494
dtgriscom wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water blocks alpha, beta and gamma rays, but the water itself can carry radioactive elements, which I'd guess was the source of this (relatively minor) contamination.

Reactor h2o itself does not carry radiation, but any extra molecules in tend to do it, thats the reason why the water is as clean you can get, over-distilled. This by itself means that it is not potable (btw for disposal to environment it gets re-salinated), so they told the story of professor drinking it must be an urban myth. It is bad even for skin expose (swimming in it), but hopefully that worker got just a few…

> This by itself means that it is not potable

Do you mean because it's distilled? Distilled water is perfectly safe to drink.

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