9 ms·
dunno if the life vest bit comment of yours was sarcastic, but it is a funny remark for sure :-) it sounds like "guy felt down in a volcano, but fortunately,
by wiz21c 1y ago
dunno if the life vest bit comment of yours was sarcastic, but it is a funny remark for sure :-)
it sounds like "guy felt down in a volcano, but fortunately, he had a life vest"
- tialaramex 1y agoRather more like "Guy fell over looking into the volcano but fortunately there's a metal fence". The most immediate danger to you is that you'll drown because radioactive water is water and you can't breathe. So the life vest avoids this. In contrast volcanic lava absolutely can kill you before you drown, no problem. Yes, radioactivity isn't good. You should not, for example, drink this water, or swim in it once a week for good luck. But, it isn't magic death fluid, the worker will have been decontaminated - destroying clothing, washing skin and so on, and the additional exposure means they might get more monitoring, but they're probably fine.
- weinzierl 1y agoIn addition to that they increased their likelihood to get cancer earlier than they would otherwise. Many things have this effect, for example alcohol. In the end everyone get cancer eventually, some just die before from other causes.
- lazide 1y agoUnlikely in this case. Water is amazingly as a shielding medium, and unless the water was contaminated (very unlikely, as it’s easily detected and heavily monitored) he likely got lower than background levels while in the pool itself.
- fwip 1y agoThe article seems to indicate that the radiation level in their hair was notably elevated.
- lazide 1y agoUnfortunately, it also provided no useful information quantifying the statements. Maybe there is a problem elsewhere, maybe the pool is contaminated, maybe the sensor used is very sensitive and 300 cpm is not as concerning as it would seem. It sure would be nice to have actual data, wouldn’t it?
- weinzierl 1y agoThe reactor cavity water is usually moderately radioactive from activation and small leaks. Not life-threatening but certainly a long term health risk, especially when ingested. That is why the person was advised to seek medical attention. Regulatory bodies have adopted the LNT (linear no threshold) model and for good reasons. Every exposure increases your likelihood to get cancer eventually. Many things do, such is life, and radiation is one of them.
- lazide 1y agoIt was deactivated and being refueled, so likely something leaked somewhere. But that should be a lot more than a ‘we dunno’ if so - it’s not like it’s not going to be clear from isotopic analysis eh? Or hopefully they at least have some decent spectrum on it. And it should show up in realtime monitoring of the water, unless they just turned that off.
- nandomrumber 1y agoThere’s no data that shows LNT is correct.
- yetihehe 1y ago> If you’re concerned about staying within safe radiation levels, Ken Jorgustin explains on the Modern Survival Blog that it would take 432 days at a CPM of 100 to up your chance of getting cancer to odds of 1 in 1,000 > The individual was decontaminated by radiation protection personnel but had 300 counts per minute detected in their hair. This event will result in acute hair loss. From shaving machine.
- elcritch 1y agoUnfortunate because for the first time in his life he had RAD hair. ;)
- saagarjha 1y agoI think you would probably explode if you hit lava to be honest
- froggit 1y agoNot sure how fortunate that metal fence would be. Apparently those things conduct heat. "Fortunately guy who fell in volcano landed on the white hot chain link safety fence deep inside and was grilled to death over a span of several minutes. His last thoughts were on how lucky he was that at least he hadn't fallen in a reactor pool without a life vest."
- tialaramex 1y agoWait, when the guy falls on the dangerously hot fence, why the fuck doesn't anybody pull them away? The nuclear reactor pool guy presumably didn't just float there until he got the idea to haul himself out, everybody else went "Shit! Bob fell into the water, quick help me get him out".
- afiori 1y agoMy understanding is that reactor and waste pools are some of the least radioactive environments as they are constantly monitored for leakage.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- stavros 1y agoPossibly, but I wouldn't think "least radioactive environments in a nuclear reactor" is a low bar. I don't know, though.
- lexicality 1y agoI remember hearing somewhere that the biggest risk from swimming in a live reactor's coolant pool would be lead poisoning caused by the DoE guards and their lack of a sense of humour
- vntok 1y agoHere: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ > But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool. “In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”
- adastra22 1y agoNo you misread. One of the least radioactive areas, full stop. It is less radioactive than your house.
- stavros 1y agoOh really? Huh, very interesting, thanks.
- tarruda 1y ago> dunno if the life vest bit comment of yours was sarcastic, but it is a funny remark for sure :-) It was a quote of the linked article: "Holtec International, which owns the closed nuclear facility, reported the worker was a contractor who was wearing all required personal protective equipment, including a life vest while working near the pool without a barrier in place."
- wrsh07 1y agoAnd it's important because it probably provides limits on how deep into the pool they might have fallen From the linked xkcd in various threads it seems like a life vest should keep you in the "safe" zone However it doesn't actually say how much is safe to drink
- cedilla 1y agoIf you work near water you should be wearing a life vest. Especially if it's an area that may be hard to get to or where other dangers are around or if you're alone.
- ikari_pl 1y agoit's actually important - close to the surface, the radiation should be mostly all filtered out by the water already. the deeper you get, the worse for you. I assume the first second was critical.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoto make this point extra extra explicit: a life vest is also a "stay very close to the surface" vest. It prevents the worker going down like when you jump into a pool. The usual reason for this is it keeps your mouth from being far from the air. In this case it also helps because the radioactive stuff is close to the bottom. And exposure depends on distance from the bottom.
- nkrisc 1y agoAnyone working around a large pool of deep water should be wearing a personal floatation device. He was not working in a volcano.
- haskellshill 1y agoWow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power plants really work. It's really not that dangerous to fall into the water.
- nilamo 1y agoThe zeitgeist has been anti-nuclear for so many decades, fear pops up around any topic that's at all adjacent to a reactor.
- throwaway894345 1y agoOr maybe people just don’t that water mitigates radiation really well? You can be very pro-nuclear and still be concerned about radioactive contamination if you don’t know that radioactivity is dramatically reduced by just a few feet of water.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sroussey 1y agoIf you’re in the water, you may get a few feet less of that protection. Particularly if you swim down.
- g0db1t 1y ago[dead]
- amarant 1y agoAccording to Randall Munroe, you'd actually experience less radiation about a metre under the water in a spent fuel pool then you do walking down the street. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ On a tangent, I kinda love the fact that I've learned more about nuclear physics, orbital mechanics, and relativistic speeds from a poorly drawn webcomic than I have from any other source. (Ok KSP might actually have xkcd beat on orbital mechanics)
- zamalek 1y agoYour radiation exposure next to a coal power plant (thorium in ash) is significantly higher than a nuclear power plant (background radiation). I imagine this is much the same.
- benmathes 1y agoXKCD has a good video about this. The top of the water is remarkably safe, and a life vest would keep you up there! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 1y agoWow, this video literally answers all the speculation and discussion in this thread.