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Merged nuclear power safe?

You don't know that, any more than anyone else knows. They haven't released any information about that at all.

And if it's beta and alpha, suits protect against that just fine. It's gamma that you can't shield from. They are not running from alpha and beta rays. They certainly aren't stopping work because of alpha particles.
 
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elgarak said:
Well, yes. I want to keep the text simple.

Gasses are not much concern, except for high concentrations after venting events. They don't stick to surfaces and have a short half-life, as you say. Outside of the NPP, forget about them. No danger.

Inside, a lot more. Hence, evacuation until they're decayed.
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that's the thing, they have short half lives and once they start to decay, they are no longer noble gasses.
 
r-j said:
You don't know that, any more than anyone else knows. They haven't released any information about that at all.

And if it's beta and alpha, suits protect against that just fine. It's gamma that you can't shield from. They are not running from alpha and beta rays. They certainly aren't stopping work because of alpha particles.
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Maybe it helps if you watch the video on this page.

It is a pretty good presentation by a professor of physics at the University of California in Santa Barbara. And watch the video. Not all the slides are completely self-explanatory.
 
r-j said:
How much lead does it take to stop gamma rays?
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Again, here's the rule of thumb:

To shield yourself from a small source of

1) alphas;
2) betas;
3) gammas;

of similar activity, you'll need a:

1) sheet of paper;
2) book;
3) library.
 
elgarak said:
Maybe it helps if you watch the video on this page.

Not all the slides are completely self-explanatory.
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I looked at the conclusion slide. He uses "my feelings" multiple times. I don't find that scientific at all. He also says the worst thing about Chernobyl was fear.

It reads like a propaganda piece.
 
elgarak said:
Again, here's the rule of thumb:

To shield yourself from a small source of

2) betas;

of similar activity, you'll need a:

2) book;
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A little aluminum foil will stop beta. So will lead foil. Or leaded glass.
 
r-j said:
I looked at the conclusion slide. He uses "my feelings" multiple times. I don't find that scientific at all. He also says the worst thing about Chernobyl was fear.

It reads like a propaganda piece.
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There was not much data yet when he gave the presentation (on the 16th, and his data was at most from the 15th). We now have some more data and further developments, which are pretty much in line with his "feelings". The reason he gave the "my feelings" estimates was that he wanted to avoid "I don't know" statements, and gave his honest opinion.

And yes, outside of the Ukraine (I was in Germany at the time) the worst about Chernobyl was fear, uncertainty and doubt due to lack of reporting of basic facts and media hysteria.

Edit: As said, I lived in Germany during Chernobyl. You know the impact of my life due to radiation of Chernobyl? Zero. Zip. Nada.
 
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r-j said:
A little aluminum foil will stop beta. So will lead foil. Or leaded glass.
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...maybe I should have added a smiley...

This is not a real life recommendation. It's a simple rule to remember the differences in dangerousness.
 
elgarak said:
There was not much data yet when he gave the presentation (on the 16th, and his data was at most from the 15th). We now have some more data and further developments, which are pretty much in line with his "feelings". The reason he gave the "my feelings" estimates was that he wanted to avoid "I don't know" statements, and gave his honest opinion.

And yes, outside of the Ukraine (I was in Germany at the time) the worst about Chernobyl was fear, uncertainty and doubt due to lack of reporting of basic facts and media hysteria.

Edit: As said, I lived in Germany during Chernobyl. You know the impact of my life due to radiation of Chernobyl? Zero. Zip. Nada.
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The most funniest thing about chernobyl in germany : the Hamm nuke plant which I visited at the time (*) had an incident where they released radionucleotide. Most radioactivity of the region was actually not chernobyl... But Hamm nuke plant...

(*) not really, we came with a bus beside it, with people in protection gear running around telling us to go the HECK out of here. Bus driver did not ask why he just hit the acceleration pedal...
 
r-j said:
You don't know that, any more than anyone else knows. They haven't released any information about that at all.

And if it's beta and alpha, suits protect against that just fine. It's gamma that you can't shield from. They are not running from alpha and beta rays. They certainly aren't stopping work because of alpha particles.
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If you bothered to do the research you'd know it too. Nuclear reactions aren't some sort of blackbox that no-one knows what is happening inside of them. Radionuclides all act in very specific ways. Krypton-90 doesn't suddenly turn into a major gamma producer, or start spitting out lots of Alpha particles, it's a Beta producer and the majority of decaying Kr-90 will spit out a beta particle. When it does that it's not going to magically turn into Aluminium or lead, it becames Rb-90 which then undergoes further Beta decay to become Sr-90 (which has a halflife of years not seconds like the previous two). This is nuclear chemistry, it's well known how it all works.
 
PhantomWolf said:
If you bothered to do the research you'd know it too. Nuclear reactions aren't some sort of blackbox that no-one knows what is happening inside of them. Radionuclides all act in very specific ways. Krypton-90 doesn't suddenly turn into a major gamma producer, or start spitting out lots of Alpha particles, it's a Beta producer and the majority of decaying Kr-90 will spit out a beta particle. When it does that it's not going to magically turn into Aluminium or lead, it becames Rb-90 which then undergoes further Beta decay to become Sr-90 (which has a halflife of years not seconds like the previous two). This is nuclear chemistry, it's well known how it all works.
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What is still pretty much unknown are long-term biological effects (like cancer risk) of doses below, say, 1 Sv. Mostly because not enough people have received such a large dose.
 
It's pretty amazing. Some people, if I were to believe them, would have me thinking that no matter what, radiation just isn't that big a deal. A reactor can melt down, explode, burn it doesn't matter, because it just isn't that dangerous.

Other people think it is.
 
elgarak said:
What is still pretty much unknown are long-term biological effects (like cancer risk) of doses below, say, 1 Sv. Mostly because not enough people have received such a large dose.
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True, but not very relevant to the discussion. r-j is certain that all the radioactivity at the plant boundry is gamma and coming from a source inside the plant, so it must be deadly in the plant. Fortunately for the workers in the plant, this idea of r-j's has exactly the same amount of reality to it as his denial of Cs-137 and Sr-90 in dairy products. I did note that he failed to apologise to those posters he called liars over that one too.

In this case it really is a little knowledge being dangerous, unfortunately he doesn't seem at all interested in gaining enough knowledge to actually understand the issue. He reminds me totally of many of the HBs I see going on about the VB Belts.
 
r-j said:
It's pretty amazing. Some people, if I were to believe them, would have me thinking that no matter what, radiation just isn't that big a deal. A reactor can melt down, explode, burn it doesn't matter, because it just isn't that dangerous.

Other people think it is.
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Are you deliberately lying about what people are saying or are you so uninformed and lazy that this is what you think?
 
http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/bmonreal11/oh/101.html

Looking at that diagram, and then looking at reactor #3, the fuel rod pools holding the plutonium fuel have to be exposed to the air. Or damaged.

Which is what I just heard on the news. There is nothing over the fuel rod pools in reactor#3

If burning plutonium fuel rods are no big deal, why is everyone so concerned about that?
 
Actually, since they say almost nothing about what is happening in the plant, nobody has any idea what the measurements mean.

I just wanted to know what kind of radiation could cause high levels half a kilometer away from the source?
 
r-j said:
It's pretty amazing. Some people, if I were to believe them, would have me thinking that no matter what, radiation just isn't that big a deal. A reactor can melt down, explode, burn it doesn't matter, because it just isn't that dangerous.

Other people think it is.
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Then you misunderstand.

Radiation is a big deal. It can kill you.

But you need to know how. And how much radiation is needed to kill.

And I don't want to downplay the Fukushima disaster. It's bad. But not for me, and probably not for you (if you're outside of Japan). Inside of Japan, it will have an impact on people's life. They need to monitor their food and water for decades to come (for Cs-137 contamination). But I don't think (based on the data I have) that the current evacuation zone will become uninhabitable. I also don't think that the power plant will become the death trap that Chernobyl is. Currently, my projection is that they continue cooling, and then slowly dismantle over the next few years. It's an expensive, dangerous mess. But not the end of the world, and not a hellhole.
 
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