5 ms·

I wouldn't even call it bad. Reactor pools have basically zero radiation at the surface. The water is constantly filtered and kept very pure to remove contamina

I wouldn't even call it bad. Reactor pools have basically zero radiation at the surface. The water is constantly filtered and kept very pure to remove contaminants that can be activated by neutrons. Even drinking it I would think would be completely fine. The water itself doesn't get activated.

golem14 1y ago
Obligatory what-if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
happyopossum 1y ago
Then where did their radioactive hair come from?
- roenxi 1y ago
  The pool. But it isn't necessarily a problem - your hair, right now, is radioactive. Presumably wouldn't trip a measuring device because it'd be background levels. The linked report doesn't say how radioactive his hair is or give any indication of whether the person in question is threatened by this reading. Could be bad, could be nothing, we just know it is higher than normal.
  - ComplexSystems 1y ago
    It says "The individual was decontaminated by radiation protection personnel but had 300 counts per minute detected in their hair."
    - roenxi 1y ago
      It does say that. Can you translate that into a measurement of radioactivity & medical risk? I don't think it is obvious. EDIT The report below it seems to literally be "nothing interesting happened". The thresholds here for something to be reportable are very low. Frankly I don't know why this story is upvoted so much but I'm not about to make a bigger deal about it than one sentence.
      - sithadmin 1y ago
        300cpm is lower than what you’d be exposed to on a commercial airline flight (400-900ish cpm).
        doetoe 1y ago
        But is that the same thing? 300cpm says something about the risk to someone near the worker, not about what the worker has been exposed to
        gblargg 1y ago
        CPM is a function of the detector sensitivity/size and radiation level.
    - madaxe_again 1y ago
      For reference, this is about the same in your hair that you’d get from a few hours in a pub in the 90s, never mind working in one - surprising amount of radiation in cigarette smoke from polonium and lead-210.
- Brian_K_White 1y ago
  That's what I was thinking, but it does look like 300 cpm for a few hours is essentially nothing, or it looks real bad, I can't tell. I found this: Days to receive chronic dose for increase cancer risk of 1 in a 1,000 432 (at 100 CPM) 86 (at 500 CPM) Ok so 300 for an hour (we'll assume the hair is cut off and the exposure either stops or 90% reduces) means no problem. Don't do that every day that's all. But it's from a prepper site that doesn't cite their own sources. I found this: https://www.energy.gov/ehss/articles/doe-ionizing-radiation-dose-ranges-charts https://www.energy.gov/ehss/articles/doe-ionizing-radiation-... Which uses rem instead of cpm. An on-line converter of unknown quality says 300 cpm is 500 rem, and the pdf from the .gov site says 500 rem is "death probable in 2-3 weeks", but I think that chart is saying that's whole body & no therapy. Where this is probably mostly hair that can be just cut off totally let alone washed, and so the elevated exposure is probably both low and short duration, and medical therapy (whatever that means, if any in this case) on top. I can't tell, could be the same as just visting a country with a slightly higher background that isn't a problem for anyone, to dead in a month. Leaning towards no problem just because of the short time and apparently mostly external and removable source. However, it's not nothing either. It's maybe no problem for this person only because they avoided ingesting the water and the water was very quickly washed off and presumably their hair was cut off and all clothes etc removed as fast as possible. It's clearly at least "rather hot" and you can't just play in it and have prolonged exposure and ingestion. It doesn't seem to be "basically zero".
  - roenxi 1y ago
    The report doesn't read like something involving 500 rem and potential death in 3 weeks. It says "Non Emergency". Can you link to this converter? It seems to be a rather key step that got handwaved. Wiki says [0] there isn't a standard on what a "count" counts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_per_minute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_per_minute
    - aw1621107 1y ago
      This website [0] gives the same numbers (300 CPM -> 500 REM). Seems like a candidate for what was used at the very least, and nothing else obviously appeared to claim a similar CPM -> REM conversion capability. Assuming this website was used, it looks like it does a naive multiplication by 5/3, which seems... simplistic? The rest of the page doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either. No indication of how the conversion factor was derived and there's a bunch of links to other CPM -> <radiation-related unit> calculators. On top of that, the landing page for the root domain boasts about AI capabilities and their AI page prominently features "Elevate Your Content Creation" and "Generate high-quality AI content with ease!" [0]: https://www.inayam.co/unit-converter/radioactivity/counts_per_minute-to-rem https://www.inayam.co/unit-converter/radioactivity/counts_pe...
jojobas 1y ago
Water itself is activated by neutrons, even if slightly.
- mlindner 1y ago
  How? Neutrons slamming into water would break it apart, turn it into hydrogen and oxygen, and possibly activate the hydrogen into deuterium or tritium. But once it's hydrogen (or an isotope of it) it'll turn gaseous and be filtered off.
  - jojobas 1y ago
    In order to become gaseous they need to combine with another atom of the same kind torn free, which is about as likely as combining with a free atom of another kind, form an HO radical and stay liquid. Tritiated water is a reality of reactor pools.
nashashmi 1y ago
Is it not Heavy Water?
- loeg 1y ago
  Mostly no.
- mafuy 1y ago
  No, just pure water. It's used to isolate against radiation leaks.

golem14 1y ago

Obligatory what-if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

happyopossum 1y ago

Then where did their radioactive hair come from?

roenxi 1y ago
The pool. But it isn't necessarily a problem - your hair, right now, is radioactive. Presumably wouldn't trip a measuring device because it'd be background levels. The linked report doesn't say how radioactive his hair is or give any indication of whether the person in question is threatened by this reading. Could be bad, could be nothing, we just know it is higher than normal.
- ComplexSystems 1y ago
  It says "The individual was decontaminated by radiation protection personnel but had 300 counts per minute detected in their hair."
  - roenxi 1y ago
    It does say that. Can you translate that into a measurement of radioactivity & medical risk? I don't think it is obvious. EDIT The report below it seems to literally be "nothing interesting happened". The thresholds here for something to be reportable are very low. Frankly I don't know why this story is upvoted so much but I'm not about to make a bigger deal about it than one sentence.
    - sithadmin 1y ago
      300cpm is lower than what you’d be exposed to on a commercial airline flight (400-900ish cpm).
      - doetoe 1y ago
        But is that the same thing? 300cpm says something about the risk to someone near the worker, not about what the worker has been exposed to
      - gblargg 1y ago
        CPM is a function of the detector sensitivity/size and radiation level.
  - madaxe_again 1y ago
    For reference, this is about the same in your hair that you’d get from a few hours in a pub in the 90s, never mind working in one - surprising amount of radiation in cigarette smoke from polonium and lead-210.
Brian_K_White 1y ago
That's what I was thinking, but it does look like 300 cpm for a few hours is essentially nothing, or it looks real bad, I can't tell. I found this: Days to receive chronic dose for increase cancer risk of 1 in a 1,000 432 (at 100 CPM) 86 (at 500 CPM) Ok so 300 for an hour (we'll assume the hair is cut off and the exposure either stops or 90% reduces) means no problem. Don't do that every day that's all. But it's from a prepper site that doesn't cite their own sources. I found this: https://www.energy.gov/ehss/articles/doe-ionizing-radiation-dose-ranges-charts https://www.energy.gov/ehss/articles/doe-ionizing-radiation-... Which uses rem instead of cpm. An on-line converter of unknown quality says 300 cpm is 500 rem, and the pdf from the .gov site says 500 rem is "death probable in 2-3 weeks", but I think that chart is saying that's whole body & no therapy. Where this is probably mostly hair that can be just cut off totally let alone washed, and so the elevated exposure is probably both low and short duration, and medical therapy (whatever that means, if any in this case) on top. I can't tell, could be the same as just visting a country with a slightly higher background that isn't a problem for anyone, to dead in a month. Leaning towards no problem just because of the short time and apparently mostly external and removable source. However, it's not nothing either. It's maybe no problem for this person only because they avoided ingesting the water and the water was very quickly washed off and presumably their hair was cut off and all clothes etc removed as fast as possible. It's clearly at least "rather hot" and you can't just play in it and have prolonged exposure and ingestion. It doesn't seem to be "basically zero".
- roenxi 1y ago
  The report doesn't read like something involving 500 rem and potential death in 3 weeks. It says "Non Emergency". Can you link to this converter? It seems to be a rather key step that got handwaved. Wiki says [0] there isn't a standard on what a "count" counts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_per_minute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counts_per_minute
  - aw1621107 1y ago
    This website [0] gives the same numbers (300 CPM -> 500 REM). Seems like a candidate for what was used at the very least, and nothing else obviously appeared to claim a similar CPM -> REM conversion capability. Assuming this website was used, it looks like it does a naive multiplication by 5/3, which seems... simplistic? The rest of the page doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either. No indication of how the conversion factor was derived and there's a bunch of links to other CPM -> <radiation-related unit> calculators. On top of that, the landing page for the root domain boasts about AI capabilities and their AI page prominently features "Elevate Your Content Creation" and "Generate high-quality AI content with ease!" [0]: https://www.inayam.co/unit-converter/radioactivity/counts_per_minute-to-rem https://www.inayam.co/unit-converter/radioactivity/counts_pe...

jojobas 1y ago

Water itself is activated by neutrons, even if slightly.

mlindner 1y ago
How? Neutrons slamming into water would break it apart, turn it into hydrogen and oxygen, and possibly activate the hydrogen into deuterium or tritium. But once it's hydrogen (or an isotope of it) it'll turn gaseous and be filtered off.
- jojobas 1y ago
  In order to become gaseous they need to combine with another atom of the same kind torn free, which is about as likely as combining with a free atom of another kind, form an HO radical and stay liquid. Tritiated water is a reality of reactor pools.

nashashmi 1y ago

Is it not Heavy Water?

loeg 1y ago
Mostly no.
mafuy 1y ago
No, just pure water. It's used to isolate against radiation leaks.