An industrial gamma radiography exposure device (IGRED), weighing about 17 kg, containing about 0.5 TBq activity of Ir-192 source was lost on May 22, 2006 during transport by three wheeler taxi in Thane (Near Mumbai). The IGRED along with radiography accessories was carried by a trainee radiographer and his assistant in the taxi for carrying out radiography work in a place about 5 km away from the facility where the source was stored. En-route, they shifted to another taxi but inadvertently forgot to shift the radiography device from the first taxi to the second taxi. The source could not be recovered in spite of extensive search operations carried out using high sensitivity radiation survey instruments. No radiation injury has been reported. It is presumed that the source continues to be inside the gamma radiography exposure device. The device has adequate shielding with proper locking mechanisms in place to prevent inadvertent removal of the radioactive source and therefore the incident may not cause any significant radiological hazard to the members of the public.The incident is rated at level-2 on INES.
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, […]
