4 ms·

Shielding is totally irrelevant. Even on land it's insignificant compared to the inverse cube law- spreading the dose reduces it much faster than the shielding

Shielding is totally irrelevant. Even on land it's insignificant compared to the inverse cube law- spreading the dose reduces it much faster than the shielding, once you aren't right next to the reactor. Radiation exposure is not caused by proximity, it's caused by breathing and eating nuclear material. Water makes that FAR faster. Again you're describing a sealed or mostly sealed, cold reactor, which is what most spills have been like. That is not what an accident would be like. It's a totally different scenario. > And the very dangerous isotopes you speak of, they have a very short half-life. Minutes, hours and days- easily long enough to kill local life outright. My point was that the local effects underwater would be far more disastrous than a similar accident on land, if there is life where the accident happens. > See also, the Oklo natural nuclear reactor complete with all the associated waste/contamination and the fact that it had little to no impact on the surrounding environment[2]. It was active during the precambrian, and buried underground, which was again the exact assumption of yours that I had an issue with. You are really, fundamentally not understanding what I am saying- a nuclear accident is extremely different from disposal.

missosoup 7y ago
In a worst case where all the fuel simultaneously becomes a suspended powder, would kill a bunch of sealife in an area smaller than 100m radius. We do far worse on a regular basis with commercial fishing. You make a sea reactor dump sound like China Syndrome. The fact that 11+ of them happened with no significant problems makes it pretty clear that you're exaggerating. Microplastics and plastics in the ocean are a far more serious and far more tangible concern than a hypothetically hijacked ship hypothetically dumping the core which hypothetically turns into powder form.

missosoup 7y ago

In a worst case where all the fuel simultaneously becomes a suspended powder, would kill a bunch of sealife in an area smaller than 100m radius. We do far worse on a regular basis with commercial fishing. You make a sea reactor dump sound like China Syndrome. The fact that 11+ of them happened with no significant problems makes it pretty clear that you're exaggerating. Microplastics and plastics in the ocean are a far more serious and far more tangible concern than a hypothetically hijacked ship hypothetically dumping the core which hypothetically turns into powder form.