On April 29, 2002, the State of Illinois, an Agreement State, completed its investigation into a radiography incident that occurred in June 2000, but was not reported to the State of Illinois until 18 months later. After a review of all available information, the State of Illinois cannot definitively eliminate the possibility that an industrial radiographer received a radiation burn while performing industrial radiography. The radiographer was using a 3 TBq (81 Ci) of Ir-192 source while performing radiographs on 20 cm (8 inch) pipe welds. The radiographer alleges that after cranking the source back, he approached the area without looking at his survey meter. He set the meter behind the camera and knelt down in front of the camera. He changed out the film and prepared for the next shot. He then disconnected the guide tube and saw 4-6 inches of the drive cable. He looked over at the survey meter and saw that it was off-scale. He immediately went to the controls and cranked the source fully into the camera. He performed a survey and confirmed the source was shielded properly. He looked at his alarming ratemeter and saw that the battery indicator showed "low battery." His self-reading pocket dosimeter showed off-scale. The radiographer did not report the incident to the Radiation Safety Officer (RSO). The radiographer states that after one or two weeks, he noticed a small red area on the outside of his left lower leg. During August - September 2001, his condition apparently worsened and the area would not heal. In early January 2002, the RSO finally became aware of this matter and notified the State of Illinois on January 15, 2002. A physician concluded that the medical condition could be attributed to the event in June 2000. After thoroughly reviewing all the information available and interviewing involved personnel, the State of Illinois estimated the possible dose to the radiographer's left lower leg was 15 Sv (1500 rem).
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
