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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

#91

Post by jojobas »

grogenaut wrote: post #47
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?

numbers matter. A human naturally gives off 0.2mSv/year. so basically you are emitting radiation right now, just very slowly. They had 300 counts per minute which would e around 6200 mSv year. But how much is that? the limit in a year for some body parts goes up to 500mSv year for workers. But that's if their body are getting that much radiation for the whole year. TL;DR you're always getting some ionizing radiation,…

Hair can't hold that much water compared to any ingested amount. Whether contaminated or activated, internal irradiation from that much will be pretty bad.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#92

Post by pembrook »

ang_cire wrote: post #59
fwlr wrote: post #38

Scrolling up and down the list, just how onerous is this reporting regulation? It seems almost cartoonishly excessive, even for critical safety applications.

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).

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#93

Post by noduerme »

anakaine wrote: post #30
hshdhdhehd wrote: post #7

> 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"

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.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#95

Post by roenxi »

happyopossum wrote: post #80
mlindner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't even call it bad. Reactor pools have basically zero radiation at the surface. The water is constantly filtered and kept very pure to remove contaminants that can be activated by neutrons. Even drinking it I would think would be completely fine. The water itself doesn't get activated.

Then where did their radioactive hair come from?

The pool. But it isn't necessarily a problem - your hair, right now, is radioactive. Presumably wouldn't trip a measuring device because it'd be background levels.

The linked report doesn't say how radioactive his hair is or give any indication of whether the person in question is threatened by this reading. Could be bad, could be nothing, we just know it is higher than normal.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#99

Post by BurningFrog »

andy99 wrote: post #32
donatj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's generally speaking, not that dangerous. Water is very good at blocking radiation. That's part of the reason why the pool is filled with it to begin with.

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?

What you "need to" do is often not decided by a rational risk assessment.

Re: A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool

#100

Post by DonHopkins »

BirAdam wrote: post #82

If my childhood taught me anything, it’s that there’s about to be an awesome superhero.

Where is Jimmy Carter when we need him? And Rodney Dangerfield to explain how big Jimmy Carter is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/1bh2edu/th...

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