

Prescient Steve Blank Post about Nuclear Reactors - terrisv
http://steveblank.com/2010/07/12/nukeem-till-they-glow-–-quitting-my-first-job/

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Luc
Nice anecdote, but what exactly is prescient about it? Perhaps I read it too
fast and missed it.

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retube
Indeed. A good yarn and an enviable experience, but not prescient of anything,
or even relevant to the incident(s) in Japan.

tl:dr: nuclear reactors emit radiation.

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Padraig
tl; dr's rarely do justice but I think that's a bit snipey.

The point I took from it was in the organisational culture in the team that
looked after the reactor. A macho attitude celebrating exposure to radiation
does not inspire confidence.

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ErrantX
To be honest I think there were two seperate things there; the macho attitude
to radiation exposure, and the mistake (understandably) made by a new team
member.

The former is just a defence mechanism, probably related to them being in the
forces where the alternative (expressing concern or fear) doesn't fit. But I
don't think it would translate into "go on, lean out over there and you'll be
top of the chart this month!!"

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Padraig
There's plenty of room for 'respecting dangerous invisible shit that can kill
you' between those two extremes of being a scaredy-cat and acting macho.

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ErrantX
I'm struggling to see the jokey and macho competition described as anything
more than camaraderie, certainly not an extreme or uncommon attitude. I don't
think it means they are ignoring the radiation, just enjoying (rather than
dwelling) on the risk associated with their chosen career.

The story conflates these two different incidents, but really they are
unrelated. And if the takeaway you have is that they were blase about the
risks, well, that isn't at all how I read it. Indeed, it was clear that it was
taken seriously.

Steve just didn't have the same attitude and so quit, that is all :)

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sophacles
I don't think prescient means what you think it means.

Still, it was a fun article.

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retube
Reminds me of my time at Imperial College London when I discovered that they
had a FUSION REACTOR in the basement of the physics department- a Z-Pinch. I
can't remember the details exactly but basically three gigantic lasers which
zapped a tiny copper(?) target. Pulled like a gazillion watts, something like
entire UK energy output for a fraction of a second. Resulting pressure would
cause the copper target to fuse, creating a tiny, short-lived "sun" in the
process. Very bright, very hot. Pretty damn cool.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-pinch>

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mrcharles
Cherenkov radiation leads to some pretty pictures.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation>

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michaelbuckbee
I'm sure it is because Hollywood set designers did research in nuclear
reactors to use as the basis of their sci-fi set designs, but it's hard for me
to think of those pictures as anything but creepy and foreboding.

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bioh42_2
Can someone explain why the scram rods are not made to automatically fall into
the reactor when power is cut?

I would image power would keep them out of the reactor and when power is cut,
they drop in.

My ill informed understand of the Chernobyl accident is that specific safety
measures had been deliberately disabled as part of testing.

Does anyone know why the Fukushima reactors weren't scrammed? Also, can you
scram the waste pools?

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ScotterC
They were scrammed. Immediately. What they're dealing with is called residual
heat removal. Even though the reactor was turned off within seconds (same as
three mile island), the fuel is extremely hot and takes about a week to cool
it to a normal level.

Control rods are automatically scrammed by gravity when the power is cut. They
are held by electro magnets on most designs. However, I admit that I'm not too
familiar with GE's BWR.

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wnewman
When you write "the fuel is extremely hot and takes about a week to cool it to
a normal level," perhaps what you mean is not that the fuel is literally
physically hot, but that the fuel is so radioactive that it continues
releasing a significant amount of energy from spontaneous decay even in the
absence of significant neutron flux to trigger further U or Pu fission.

When a U or Pu nucleus fissions there are several possible outcomes. Some of
those outcomes yield radioisotopes whose half-life is on the order of a week.
Thus when you suddenly interrupt a running nuclear reactor, you tend to still
have a some energy output queued up to happen spontaneously regardless of any
further fission/neutron chain reaction. IIRC, your "week" figure is roughly
correct, but not because of ordinary heat capacity, but because of this
continuing radioactive decay: the energy output typically continues for days
to be several percent of steady state power output preceding the shutdown.
(Which is enormously more energy than could be stored as heat in the mass of
the reactor at any earthly temperature.)

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ScotterC
Yup. That's what I meant :)

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goombastic
What I am not able to figure out is why aren't more robots or tele-presence
units involved? I know a million gamers who would volunteer to do this stuff.

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ohyes
I believe the answer is electromagnetic interference. Reactors produce many
forms of electromagnetic radiation, not just the ionizing type.

Also note, that machine vision was a big deal (for a while) in nuclear,
because it would have meant that you could do without radio transmission, but
even so, the robot would need to be really well shielded...

(IANANE)

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tintin
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1508131>

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rbanffy
That's one very nice story. Thank you.

