"Nuclear & Radiological Accidents" class

Interest Groups Atomic Energy
#1

I’m thinking of presenting two sessions on this topic, the first covering basically radioactive releases & radiation exposures not involving reactors, the second those involving reactors. The “model incident” for the first session would be Gioiana, the second Chernobyl, with various digressions into such topics as the SL-1 reactor accident, the Tokai-mura reprocessing plant accident, & industrial radiography accidents.

The fear of reactor meltdowns, “dirty bombs”, et cetera, seems to loom large in the minds even of those who are generally in favour of atomic power, & I want to look at what kinds of things actually happen (and, as importantly, how they happen), to make possible a real understanding of these questions.

If anyone else is interested, I’d like some input on times & days. I’m thinking maybe 8 PM on two consecutive Tuesdays, only because I did my most recent class on a Saturday, & this wasn’t necessarily convenient.

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#2

I would love this, I spend a lot of time trying to explain that the “Pacific is not radioactive, due to Fukishima” weeknights would work for me, unless I am teaching

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#3

Count me in. I went off to college originally intending to be a nuclear physicist so many moons ago.

I still get the chills whenever I read accounts of the issues with the Therac-25…

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#4

In case anyone else wanted to lose an evening reading…





-the purring dork

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#5

Have you considered including accidents in which an Air Force plane crashed while carrying one or more nukes?

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#6

Have there been cases of this happening and releasing radiation?

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#7

There are actually two classes of “broken arrow” incidents : those in which an aircraft has crashed while carrying a nuclear weapon, & those in which a nuclear weapon has accidentally fallen from an aircraft in flight. Both have occurred, with dispersion of bomb materials.

My intention, however, is to concentrate on uses of atomic energy which aren’t supposed to harm anyone.

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#8

I have submitted this item to the calendar for 8 PM, Tuesday 20 & 27 October.

Many people express concern about the possible consequences of releases of radioactive material or exposure to radiation, in case of “something going wrong” at an atomic energy facility. We will examine actual incidents, to see what has actually happened, how it happened, and how the consequences were handled.

Part 1 will concentrate on incidents not involving nuclear reactors, with a particular emphasis on the Goiania, Brazil, accident of 1987.

Part 2 will concentrate on incidents involving nuclear reactors, with a particular emphasis on the Chernobyl, Ukraine accident of 1986.

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#9

Here’s a commentary on what happened at Chernobyl from the former deputy chief engineer of the plant.

“It is now clear that we had been on the verge of disaster several times before. Following triggering of the emergency protection, operators had on occasions noticed emergency power overshoot (AZM) and fast rate of power rise (AZS) signals. They should not have been there and they were taken as spurious because they could not be explained. But in reality these were power surges caused by the emergency protection, which were not recorded by the SKFRE (power density physical monitoring system) automatic recorder because of the slow response time of the silver transducers used. AZM and AZS signals were possible because these originated from ionisation chambers with a faster response time. But these unfortunately had no automatic recorder to go with them. Compare with 26 April: at 23 minutes 40 seconds the emergency protection was dropped using a button (AZ-5), and three seconds later the AZM and AZS signals appeared.”

#10

And here’s one about people who are working very hard to suppress “the real story of what happened at Fukushima and its aftereffects”, namely, antinuclear activists.
Scientists who are actually measuring, for instance, the distribution of Fukushima-related radioactive material in the Pacific Ocean are receiving death threats.

Dr. Cullen started a radionuclide-monitoring program in 2014.
The Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring project (or InFORM, as he optimistically called it) worked with a broad network of scientists to gather the latest research and distribute it to the public.
“The goal and motivation … was that people were asking me, family and friends and the public at large, what the impact of the disaster was on B.C. on the North Pacific and on Canada,” he said. “I started looking for quality monitoring information so I could answer those questions as honestly and accurately as I could.”
Dr. Cullen thought the public would appreciate knowing what the scientists knew.
Shortly after he began blogging about the findings, which showed just about zero risk to the environment and to the public in North America, he became the target of a hate campaign. The attacks went far beyond fair criticism. He was not only called a “shill for the nuclear industry” and a “sham scientist” but he was told he and other researchers who were reporting that the Fukushima radiation wasn’t a threat deserved to be executed.

#11

The anti science folks today tend to call anyone that doesn’t agree with them shills. If you support vaccines, you are a shill for ‘big pharma’, support bio tech and GMO crops and you are a shill for Monsanto. It goes on and on. The hate toward you is quite real ( I get several death threats yearly on FB, PMed to me—the you should catch cancer and die are weekly).

This is slightly off topic, but related. There has been a use of FOIA requests to universities for the emails of professors that support bio tech. They did find that Monsanto had given the University of Florida $25,000 to help pay for a biotech outreach program. The professor received death threats against him, his family and his research facilities (he doesn’t even work with GMOs). And he did not pocket a single penny of it, he did get budget airfare, a compact car for his trips and it paid for the hotel space and sub sandwiches for the attendees.

This is happening both on the far right and the far left. I am concerned about it

#12

This is longer article about the Can researcher

#13

Here is a really good two-part article about a visit to Fukushima Prefecture and the damaged power station, by an environmentalist from Australia, a country which has supplied a great deal of coal to Japan while the nuclear plants have been shut down.

“Not Humbled, Angered : The response to Fukushima is an ongoing mistake.”
Part 2