Posted on 11/27/2010 10:04:54 AM PST by MindBender26
january 3, 1961: The Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One went prompt critical during maintenance.
Later on, the control rod was found embedded in the ceiling, pinning the body of the maintenance crewman to the roof.
I can imagine. Picture of McCluskey here:
http://www.ustur.wsu.edu/Case_Studies/Narratives/0246_McCluskey.php
He caught a lot of radioactive glass in the face.
They recovered radioactive gold from the wtch buckle on the one guy, and a radioactive screw fom the lighter in another mans pocket.
The ‘survivor” (for all of eleven minutes?) emitted 500R/hour even deontaminated and stripped.
All three are buried in lead lined caskets encased in concrete.
Written for the non-scientist, it is terrific for educating the masses about the growing pains, realities, and promise of atomic power.
I love the part about the most irradiated place on the planet being within 50 miles or so of Atlanta.
And that Fermi's pile was not the first reactor.
Jammed with good anecdotes to hot the loony left with.
The problem with 3 Mile Island wasn’t the design, it was the people running the reactor and NOT allowing the system to automatically shut down. Instead, they forced the system to stay up and in turn created the catastrophe.
The heavy stuff all deposited locally, The typical stuff come down on Gomel Oblast (”Gomel County”) in Belarus, where the contamination was so bad and of such a nature, and the breast cancer rates so high, that women were having prophylactic bilateral mastectomies 10 years after the event.
The light stuff went far north, Sweden and the ice pack.
Is was becuse of strange winds from the south that night. Has it been typical winds from the ESE, Poland, northern 2/3 of Germany, northern 1/3 of France, Southern 2/3 of UK would have all be screwed.
Yep.
Had the reactor crew been locked out of the control room, the reactor would have shut down on its own.
Indeed it was. The Oklo Mines in Gabon. Ran for 200,000 years.
Mother Nature created her own reactor. That just drives the Eco-Nazis nuts.
Did you get what you need yet?
When did you visit Chernobyl, and did you get a whole body dosimeter done after?
My sons have a friend who came down with a fast and fatal leukemia a few months after his visit to the Chernobyl area. No way to be certain if it was related, but — some rad fleas could do that, if injested.
Yes, both before and after, at the Crystal River nuc plant.
Clean.
Smart man. Did your questions about critically excursions get answered?
Yes, thanks.
BTW, one of people who sent with us was the senior hazmat man from Orlando Fire Dept. he has lots of Nuc experience from nuckie boats.
There were places where he would say, “Ok, you all have 60 seconds here, then we move back to.......”
Contaminated materiel, especially metal was among the worst. Absolute worst was recently dug up dirt, where radioactive products had leached into soil. 20,000 to 40,000 CPM in some areas.
Since I looked up “rad flea” on Google and saw no proper cites of the term, I’ll tell what it means. It’s a speck of radioactive material, one that gives off heavy gammas and/or alphas. The alphas can be energetic enough wrt/ the mass of the spec to act like a little rocket, impelling the particle hither and yon.
You can’t see them with normal vision, you need a geiger counter or some other detector.
Last time I went through a whole body dosimeter the poor soul in front of me git flagged for a cobalt flea deep in his lung. That’s like getting a death sentence, unless they could cut it out. Cobalt 60.
Thanks.
We went through our post travel scans with the knowledge that exposure while on site would probably not be a problem, but contamination such as you describe might.
MD members of our team, a radiologist, an oncologist, a surgeon and a trauma doc all agreed that likely sites for a “flea” were in hair, eyes. under finger or toe nails, in nose/mouth/throat/tubes/gut or in bronchi/lungs.
For hair, eye, nose, mouth or nails a good “wash” would work. For the gut, a super-enema might work. If not, then a scope job. For a lung, an endoscope.
One woman/nurse on the team had a “flea” in the gut. A precolonoscope-type “cleansing” and she was clear. That was 1996 and no problems since.
Be well
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