On October 27, 2005, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was notified by one of its radiography licensees that a potential overexposure may have occurred during radiographic operations. According to the licensee, a radiographer was disconnecting the source guide tube from the radiographic device and noticed that the source was not in the fully shielded position. The exposure device contained a 807 gigabecquerel (21.8 Ci) iridium-192 sealed source. The radiographer noticed that his pocket ion chamber was off-scale and notified the radiation safety officer (RSO). Because extremity dosimeters are not commonly used during radiographic operations, the RSO conducted a dose reconstruction. Based on the dose reconstruction, one individual may have received an extremity dose in the range of 3.3-3.6 Gy (330-360 rad), a dose in excess of NRC’s annual occupational shallow dose equivalent limit of 500 mSv (50 rem) to the skin of the extremity. Whole body dosimeter results revealed that the radiographer received a whole body dose of approximately 2 mSv (200 mrem). The radiographer was admitted to the hospital for observation and has been released.
On October 28, 2005, the NRC initiated an onsite inspection to review the circumstances that led to the event. Initial information obtained indicated the individual had worn his dosimeter on his hip and his body may have shielded the dosimeter. The NRC will conduct a reenactment and will use the information to perform dose estimates.
Location: Philadelphia Event date: Thu, 27-10-2005
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, […]
