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Tests Show Workers At Hanford Nuclear Facility Inhaled Radioactive Plutonium (king5.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from King 5, a local news station for Seattle, Washington: On June 8 approximately 350 Hanford workers were ordered to "take cover" after alarms designed to detect elevated levels of airborne radioactive contamination went off. It was quickly determined that radioactive particles had been swept out of a containment zone at the plutonium finishing plant (PFP) demolition site. The work is considered the most hazardous demolition project on the entire nuclear reservation. At the time Hanford officials called the safety measure "precautionary." Officials from the U.S. Dept. of Energy, which owns Hanford, and the contractor in charge of the demolition, CH2M Hill, downplayed the seriousness of the event with statements including, it appeared "workers were not at risk", "(the alarm went off) in an area where contamination is expected" and there was "no evidence radioactive particles had been inhaled" by anyone.
The KING 5 Investigators have discovered those statements are incorrect. An internal CH2M Hill email sent to their employees on July 21 was obtained by KING. It states that 301 (test kits) have been issued to employees and of the first 65 workers tested, a "small number of employees" showed positive results for "internal exposures" (by radioactive plutonium). Sources tell KING the "small number of employees" is twelve. Twelve people out of 65 is 20 percent. Still outstanding are 236 tests. A communication specialist with CH2M Hill sent a statement that more positive results are expected. "We expect additional positive results because analytical tests like a bioassay can detect radiological contamination at levels far lower than what field monitoring can detect," said Destry Henderson of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company.
The KING 5 Investigators have discovered those statements are incorrect. An internal CH2M Hill email sent to their employees on July 21 was obtained by KING. It states that 301 (test kits) have been issued to employees and of the first 65 workers tested, a "small number of employees" showed positive results for "internal exposures" (by radioactive plutonium). Sources tell KING the "small number of employees" is twelve. Twelve people out of 65 is 20 percent. Still outstanding are 236 tests. A communication specialist with CH2M Hill sent a statement that more positive results are expected. "We expect additional positive results because analytical tests like a bioassay can detect radiological contamination at levels far lower than what field monitoring can detect," said Destry Henderson of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company.
...but the toxicity of Pu itself that'll getcha.
Twelve people out of 65 is 20 percent.
18.5%, if you round up, mathlete.
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How likely is it that this anonymous reader is mdsolar?
The summary and the articles leave out some pretty important information. How much radiation were workers exposed to?
There's one part where CH2M Hill claimed less than you would receive during a chest x-ray, but then it quotes someone else who claims that claim is BS.
Wasn't Hanford intended for nuclear weapons development?
Hanford was from the bad old days of nuclear weapons development where everything was done as fast and cheaply as possible. It has nothing to do with power generation
Wasn't Hanford intended for nuclear weapons development?
Yep, the unheard of twin, the plutonium used in the second bomb on Japan was produce at Hanford. Production continued till Chernobyl blew up (steam explosion). They were a carbon moderated reactor as was the last operating nuclear production reactor at Hanford.
The industrial accident is tragic but the "spin" is worse because it can lead to poor precautions and more accidents.
The point here is not about using nukes or not (the stuff exists and has to be dealt with), it's about the lying sacks of shit who hurt everyone by doing so - even their own cause.
Nuke fanboys, if you want to know why we don't have reactors everywhere it's due to these lying sacks of shit making it so an entire industry is not trusted and not the powerless hippies you keep blaming.
Try to make some minor effort to know what you're talking about. The issues with Hanford have nothing to do with civilian power generation. Just quoting the summary: "...radioactive particles had been swept out of a containment zone at the plutonium finishing plant (PFP) demolition site."; Or you could try Hanford Site: "The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex"
Even if this was an incident at a nuclear power plant, the thing thing to do would be to treat it much the way we do plane crashes-- find out why it happened, and think about what to do to keep it from happening again.
The fact that we treat anti-nuclear activists differently from, say, a crazy on a street corner screaming about how planes just aren't SAFE, this is pretty remarkable.
"Is there any other kind?"
Well, there's the Pu-36, that goes into the Explosive Space Modulator. When not inserted, it is quite harmless. It's got Electrolytes.
(This is a decades long joke by Seaborg, who nicknamed Plutonium "Pee U", from the Latin "Puteo", which means "It Stinks". He was expecting to be overruled, expecting "Pl" instead, since "Pt" was already taken by Platinum. However his original suggestion stuck. When it came to naming his own Element, Seaborgium, "S" was taken by Sulfur, "Se" was taken by Selenium, and "Sb" was used for Antimony, "Sr" for Strontium... "Sg" was chosen for "Seaborg, Glenn". This is a new convention in Naming. But when it comes to "Ghiorsium" we run into more problems:
"Ag" and "Ga" have been taken. Al would be comfortable with calling it just "Al", but then there is that pesky Aluminum. So "Gh" has been tentatively chosen. But then we get back to joke names, because Al's actual choice for for naming this yet-to-be-discovered Element is "Ghastlium".
Yes, we're a _lot_ of fun at Parties. After all, "Jello Shots" were invented at Los Alamos, and "Berkeley Punch" was 50% Hawaiian Punch and 50% 190 Proof Ethanol.)
I bet these workers are so incredibly glad nuclear power is such a clean source of energy.
But since Hanford was a nuclear weapons plant, this story has nothing to do with sources of energy.
How many have died from solar, wind, or wave?
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No, no! This is an official Mdsolar Anti-Nuke Story(tm). You are not allowed to bring facts or data into the discussion. You are not allowed to mention hormesis. You must bow down before LNT. You must, like the doctors in the article, speak in vague generalities - "Well gosh, radiation is invisible and scary. Forget the data, anything at all could happen if you get some in your body!"
I've come to recognize that Nuclear Derangement Syndrome was a practice run. The symptoms are identical to the new trendy disease: Trump Derangement Syndrome.
See that "Preview" button?
How many people died because of Three Mile Island?
None.
As for contamination. You DO realize exactly how much Thorium and Uranium are present in the ground beneath your feet right? Where do you think radon gas comes from?
Done SAFELY, nuclear is essentially carbon-free.
And the problems with current nuclear can be solved by moving to a different reactor model. One that's inherently safe and runs no risk of steam explosions.
Unlike the solid fuel reactors, it burns ALL of it's fuel, so you're not pulling fuel that's only 10-15% spent.
And while the byproducts which aren't medically or scientifically useful are VERY radioactive, they're only this way for short periods of time.
And even if it was megaton quantities (like the waste from solid fuel reactors from the past 60 years), it's still a drop in the bucket compared to what's gone up the flues of coal-fired plants.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
171,000 killed, or 40x the deaths attributable to the Chernobyl disaster.
You can say we (mostly) don't build dams like that anymore, but we don't build reactors like Chernobyl anymore either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Fukushima: "None of the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi site have died from acute radiation poisoning,[17] though six workers died due to various reasons, including cardiovascular disease, during the containment efforts or work to stabilize the earthquake and tsunami damage to the site.[17]" "Although it was the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986,[10] and the radiation released exceeded official safety guidelines, there were no casualties caused by radiation exposure, but 34 people died as a result of the evacuation.[4]"
Chernobyl: "56 direct deaths (47 accident workers and nine children with thyroid cancer) resulted from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and it is estimated that there may eventually be 4,000 extra cancer deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people.[2][3][4]"
Nuclear is pretty clean. Fukushima is an accident, but to call it a disaster is an insult to the earthquake and tsunami that were the ACTUAL disaster:
"On 10 March 2015, a Japanese National Police Agency report confirmed 15,894 deaths,[37] 6,152 injured,[38] and 2,562 people missing[39] across twenty prefectures, as well as 228,863 people living away from their home in either temporary housing or due to permanent relocation.[40]"
Nuclear is like anything else, it can be very dangerous when in the wrong hands. When used for power generation it might kill approximately ZERO people. When made into a bomb: "According to figures published in 1945, 66,000 people were killed as a direct result of the Hiroshima blast, and 69,000 were injured to varying degrees.[32] "
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The "fixation" is that we use a lot of it.
If the rest of the planet had done what France did back in the 70s, we wouldn't have a global warming problem.
Are you really trying to tell me that Fukushima is not currently leaking radioactive material into the ocean. Or is it that you say that is safe? Because we chalk the deaths up under some other category where the blame is not 100% on the nuclear industry fault, we can handle any number of reactor melt-downs. They are always going to be wonderful for the environment. How many more years until the next one happens, right?
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