5 ms·

Apropos of the theme, I have a family member who does height work. Every year (typically in the months where weather will allow), he gets contracted to do some

Apropos of the theme, I have a family member who does height work. Every year (typically in the months where weather will allow), he gets contracted to do some disassembly of buildings at Sellafield (Windscale as was). What follows is hearsay, but still fun :) The typical way to raze building involves just knocking them down; these are actual disassemblies. They'll go up and unbolt and slice off pieces, and carefully lower them, where they'll be examined and tagged and bagged for onwards disposal. It's a really expensive way to remove a building. There are sections of the site where he's been told "do NOT stop walking in front of THIS building". There are rooms (and maybe entire buildings) for which the records of what radioactive fun went on in them have been lost. There are dangerously radioactive (provenance unknown) things effectively dumped in ponds that have to be removed carefully, a piece at a time, possibly involving underwater disassembly. Possibly including a car that sucked up a big dose of something it shouldn't and needed to be made relatively safer, quickly. The only saving grace is that when you have to disassemble things so slowly, the handful of people hired to do it can literally only be paid so much per day. It's going to cost orders of magnitude more than just knocking a building down, but spread over decades and decades.

jacquesm 3y ago
Your family member is hopefully wearing a dosimeter while doing all that. Sounds scary as can be.
- AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
  Anyone working in a facility like this is absolutely wearing multiple dosimeters. They will have a cumulative exposure meter, this measures a total amount of dosage over a period of time and is how official things like monthly/yearly/lifetime limits for radiation workers are calculated. This meter is for things like "oops you went 2% over your yearly radiation dose and it's only November you have to stop working until January or you increase your lifetime cancer risk by .94%" They will also have an acute meter, this is basically a tiny geiger counter which alarms above specific levels. This is for situations like "oh shit that pipe you just stepped next to has a leak and if you don't leave the room in the next 60 seconds, your never going to have any kids (or much worse)." In some highly critical locations, it's possible for people to wear multiples of each of these, especially the cumulative meters because they are cheap and there might be multiple stakeholders who each have a process for ensuring compliance (e.g. your employer requires one, the facility requires one and the government requires one) -- this is rare bureaucratic nonsense but happens. For the acute meters you might have multiple just for redundancy. It would really suck if you don't find out you're getting an abnormal dose until your friend walks into the room you've been standing in for an hour, or worse, when your cumulative meter is read days/weeks later.
  - robocat 3y ago
    > by .94% Nitpick: probably better written as either 0.94% or as 1% — it is too easy to see 94% when skimming or unfamiliar (94 feels big, and percentages plus decimals are a little bit more complicated). Certainly I did a double-take.
- athom 3y ago
  I once had the pleasure of seeing Terry Pratchett speak, at the first Penguicon, near Detroit, MI. (Somewhen between 2006 and 2009, I think) He told us, among other things, of working at a facility where they had to wear some sort of dosimeter, and were not allowed to leave the base without treatment if the card turned black, or something like that. Then he mentioned one of the workers who turned up too hot to get IN to the base. Turned out, he'd acquired some old aircraft instruments that used radium paint for nighttime visibility, and had been messing around with them. Fun times!
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Wow, that's a great story. Way too young...
InCityDreams 3y ago
Oh! And people get upset at paying taxes.

jacquesm 3y ago

Your family member is hopefully wearing a dosimeter while doing all that. Sounds scary as can be.

AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
Anyone working in a facility like this is absolutely wearing multiple dosimeters. They will have a cumulative exposure meter, this measures a total amount of dosage over a period of time and is how official things like monthly/yearly/lifetime limits for radiation workers are calculated. This meter is for things like "oops you went 2% over your yearly radiation dose and it's only November you have to stop working until January or you increase your lifetime cancer risk by .94%" They will also have an acute meter, this is basically a tiny geiger counter which alarms above specific levels. This is for situations like "oh shit that pipe you just stepped next to has a leak and if you don't leave the room in the next 60 seconds, your never going to have any kids (or much worse)." In some highly critical locations, it's possible for people to wear multiples of each of these, especially the cumulative meters because they are cheap and there might be multiple stakeholders who each have a process for ensuring compliance (e.g. your employer requires one, the facility requires one and the government requires one) -- this is rare bureaucratic nonsense but happens. For the acute meters you might have multiple just for redundancy. It would really suck if you don't find out you're getting an abnormal dose until your friend walks into the room you've been standing in for an hour, or worse, when your cumulative meter is read days/weeks later.
- robocat 3y ago
  > by .94% Nitpick: probably better written as either 0.94% or as 1% — it is too easy to see 94% when skimming or unfamiliar (94 feels big, and percentages plus decimals are a little bit more complicated). Certainly I did a double-take.
athom 3y ago
I once had the pleasure of seeing Terry Pratchett speak, at the first Penguicon, near Detroit, MI. (Somewhen between 2006 and 2009, I think) He told us, among other things, of working at a facility where they had to wear some sort of dosimeter, and were not allowed to leave the base without treatment if the card turned black, or something like that. Then he mentioned one of the workers who turned up too hot to get IN to the base. Turned out, he'd acquired some old aircraft instruments that used radium paint for nighttime visibility, and had been messing around with them. Fun times!
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Wow, that's a great story. Way too young...

InCityDreams 3y ago

Oh! And people get upset at paying taxes.