Posted on 03/29/2016 11:08:55 AM PDT by djf
One of the nuclear reactors at Hanford has had a scram. That means the cooling failed and the reactor automatically shut down.
The news reports say they are checking it out and will restart when it's safe.
Hanford is located in the Columbia Basin in Eastern Washington next to the Columbia River. It is the site of some of the development of the A-Bomb. It has several deactivated reactors and numerous tanks of radioactive fluid.
There is currently an extensive cleanup program that has been in effect for lots of years.
I think it’s still a superfund site.
Whatever that means anymore.
There’s a sort of amusing story about them wanting to reuse the land over a couple of warmish areas by putting a shopping center there, and then when people pointed out that it might be a bit of a risk of exposure they changed the plan to be a golf course. The plan got trash-canned. By golfers.
I lived in the Tri Cities area for 38 years and can’t recall that story.
“Its in the state of Washington poised atop an active volcanic region of the Ring of Fire.”
What could go wrong?
Smart money is betting that after taking the oath of office Pres Trump will no longer be able to pronounce it correctly and begin saying nukular.
“Its in the state of Washington poised atop an active volcanic region of the Ring of Fire.”
LOL. Maybe 50 billion eons ago. Hanford sits on the most stable basalt foundation you could imagine and the most extinct volcanically.
Possible hack? Like the NY dam by the Iranians?
Heard it from a friend whose Dad spent a career doing reclamation there. Probably an urban legend. Well, a rural legend. I know the guy - he’s a golfer.
Of course, everyone here knows that SCRAMming a reactor means interrupting the chain reaction with carbon control rods which absorb outgoing neutrons.
It’s done by hitting the SCRAM switch or button.
Areas with any detectable levels of radiation are well inside the boundaries of Hanford proper and not subject to any commercial development. The closest golf course and residential area would be Horn Rapids, about 20 miles from the nearest former disposal or contaminated area.
This says SCRAM in Russian!
Zactly. Where’s Jimmuh?
I had heard that Hanford was almost as stable as the salt deposits around Carlsbad, NM where they built the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), but I couldnt pass up the chance to rouse the rabble.
A lot of the superfund cleanup ends up there.
As in “SCRAM!! This thing’s about to blow!”
LMAO!
IIRC Hanford is a graphite reactor, similar to Chernobyl.
I don’t understand a #####ing word you said.
how embarrassing.
They should open up the Atomic National Park.
See the bubbling waste plutonium tanks. Good for 500 years. The waste lasts for thousands, however....
Be at a real reactor scram....
See us make nuclear waste into glass....
Oh wait, it’s the government polluting the environment. Nothing to see here. Nothing happened. Never mind. ;-)
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