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Wow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power plants really work. It's really not that dangerous to fall into the water.
by haskellshill 11mo ago
Wow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power plants really work. It's really not that dangerous to fall into the water.
- nilamo 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo ago[deleted]
- sroussey 11mo agoIf you’re in the water, you may get a few feet less of that protection. Particularly if you swim down.
- g0db1t 11mo ago[dead]
- amarant 11mo 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)
- bariumbitmap 11mo agoWhy not both? Kerbal Space Program is XKCD approved: https://xkcd.com/1356/ https://xkcd.com/1356/
- causality0 11mo agoIt made me very sad when he stopped regularly writing those.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ta1243 11mo agoProbably is if you don't have a life vest.
- fwipsy 11mo agoHey, no need to be condescending. Some people just haven't read [the xkcd.](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)
- jopsen 11mo agoLife vest suddenly seems very relevant.
- tremon 11mo agoJust make sure the life vest is made of kevlar.
- nostrademons 11mo agoOr you have an employee badge.
- yujzgzc 11mo agoThis is such a better response than "wow some people really are stoopid"
- aendruk 11mo agoTo be fair, you don’t have to be stupid to be clueless. We’re all clueless about plenty of things.
- haskellshill 11mo agoI mean, if you actually think there's a pool of "lava" that's dangerously radioactive at the surface, while people are walking right next to it, you might be a bit "stoopid". The whole reason water is used is that it shields from radioactivity pretty well
- Forgeties79 11mo agoWhy would the average person know this about the water used in nuclear reactors? There are also plenty of jobs where people are in close proximity to insanely hot/dangerous liquids.
- wildylion 11mo agoMight be. If the reactor was recently defueled, especially, might there be more junk floating in the water? If said junk was alpha- or beta-emitting, it could be enough of a danger for cancer.
- loa_in_ 11mo agoIt almost sounds plausible but it's not. All fuel is extremely heavy elements that in still water falls down and deposits on the bottom.
- fsh 11mo agoThe fuel is (almost) harmless, it's the fission products that make reactors dangerous. Many of those are water-soluble. Of course the fuel elements should be encased, but drinking pool water is probably not a great idea anyway.
- refulgentis 11mo agoFew fun riffs for a Sunday morning: Wow, people are really clueless about how nuclear power plants really work. They literally wrote up a safety report and transported them off-site. Wow, people are really clueless about how to avoid reacting angrily. It's funny to append "they were wearing a life vest" to "they had a nuclear safety accident"
- ErroneousBosh 11mo agoWhat, "morning", how dare you! It's late afternoon shading towards early evening here! (Am I doing it right yet?)
- refulgentis 11mo agoIt's literally 11:59 AM, Hieronymus. People don't get how time works. I'm the observer of spacetime!
- EA-3167 11mo agoYou know the article that people love around around here, ‘Reality Has A Surprising Amount of Detail’… well it does, and most people don’t realize how little of it they’re even aware of.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 11mo agoDoesn’t it depend on how far they sink? I’m pretty sure xkcd did a comic on this. Oh, it’s a video, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8 Edit: ok, I’m probably the fiftieth person to point this out. It’s still a good video.
- destitude 11mo agoDid you read the report? Doesn't sound like it was safe for him.
- dekhn 11mo agoA lot of us grew up in the time of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl. Combined with a lot of media about radioactivity's dangers (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/nyregion/babies-teeth-and-radiation-s-path.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/nyregion/babies-teeth-and...). I think that has strongly affected people's perception of risk. I used to work at UC Berkeley, and one of the buildings on campus previously held a research nuclear reactor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Research_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Research_Reactor). There's a sign there now "Nuclear Free Zone"; (https://www.dailycal.org/archives/the-berkeley-nuclear-free-zone-has-had-unfortunate-consequences/article_8da6e788-0094-535f-91a1-c8ae0190b0a1.html https://www.dailycal.org/archives/the-berkeley-nuclear-free-...). Note that they did have to do extensive decontamination on Gilman Hall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formerly_Utilized_Sites_Remedial_Action_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formerly_Utilized_Sites_Remedi...) where plutonium was first isolated.
- skeaker 11mo agoI think for the general population we also have The Simpsons to blame. Ask anyone on the street what "nuclear waste" actually is and I'd wager at least half would say "a barrel with glowing green goo leaking out of it."
- dekhn 11mo agoWhich is funny, because everybody knows that's toxic waste (see Toxic Avenger from the 1980s).
- quantumcotton 11mo agoAs a person who knows way too much about way too many things. I am fully aware of this myself, however, the headline was shifted in a way that makes you perceive there's a problem caused by said person falling into water. So yes, logic tells you no problem but haven't recognition tells you they're trying to announce a problem. At the same time there was no problem.
- easterncalculus 11mo agoMost likely including OP
- dang 11mo agoCan you please make your substantive points without putting others down? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=share%20know%20learn%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- haskellshill 11mo agoNo :)