friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Weird Dream


Dreamt I worked in a nuclear processing facility. We had glove boxes and all that for dealing with hot materials but I was working with what should have been low level material.

When we'd leave at the end of our shift, they'd go over us with a scanner to make sure we weren't contaminated. I showed some minor contamination on my hands but they scrubbed them real good, didn't decrease which suggested it was in me rather than on me. They scanned my forehead, saw some mild activity there too.

I had gone fishing and caught a Cod recently and it was not a real large Cod, about 15lbs or so but even so more than a meal so I froze most of it but ate some of it. They wanted a sample so I brought them in a piece and it was mildly radioactive.

They said not enough to pose a significant health threat but I had caught it about thirty miles from the facility so they were concerned they might be leaking materials into the ocean.

I woke up at that point.

in reply to rotto Pureblood

@rottostein True, Simpsons makes it look like office space, the reality is it was a lot of cement and pipes. Large building, the generators were large, particularly the secondary generator. But they've decommissioned the reactor. I'm glad they did as there was one aspect that I found troubling. The reactor was designed for 1200Mw but they only ran it at 900Mw. Given how expensive nuclear is it doesn't make sense to run under capacity so I asked why. The reason I was told is that they had unexplained neutron flux density aberrations and so ran it at a lower power level to provide some overhead.
This entry was edited (4 years ago)
Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Nanook

@BR 549 ☎ Actually, there is a type of reactor called a molten salt reactor that is inherently safe and burns up the actinides leaving no long term waste. It could power our needs for next 10,000 years or so on existing waste. You probably could skate from one end of the plant to the other, yards and yards of very smooth polished concrete floor and absolutely sterile, no dust. But you're right corporate offices not only not on that floor but not even in that complex.
This entry was edited (4 years ago)
Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Nanook

@BR 549 ☎ I don't think I mentioned it here, but yeah with molten salt reactors you need to continuously remove fission products and that is part of the chemical processing. Removal of the fission products is necessary both because if you have an emergency shutdown you don't want a lot of fission products decaying and producing heat and because of neutron poisoning, they suck up neutrons and break the chain reaction.