The Pile Fuel Storage Pond divers - Sellafield Ltd

[@blip_bloop]

Nothing but respect for people undertake this kind of difficult and necessary work

[@jooch_exe]

If only Sellafield would have this kind of transparency back in the day. This is equally impressive as a walk on the moon.

[@mysticmarble94]

Windscale was a weapons test reactor.

[@mcleodclan]

@@mysticmarble94No Shit Sherlock

[@mysticmarble94]

@@mcleodclan 🤡

[@user-bm8uw8oj4k]

Windscale back in the day.

[@karlmckinnell2635]

😂if only they had walked on the moon.

[@MajorT0m]

Very cool. Could you do a video explaining and exploring the layout of that old region of the site please? I find the old Windscale buildings fascinating, it's what inspired my interest in nuclear physics when I was a child. Please do a video of the derelict facility before you demolish it all, it's an important, unique and fascinating piece of history. I'd urbex it myself if I could, but I don't think the guards would take kindly to it!

[@streaky81]

I doubt you'll see that, there's security implications to that sort of thing. I could be wrong, but I suspect they wouldn't do a video of that type. You can see it on Google Maps but it's not the same. As for urbex - I'd say so, that's civil nuclear constabulary, they don't mess around. Agreed on hopefully somebody is keeping a record though, even if they don't release it for a long time.

[@MajorT0m]

Hard to imagine those lovely old 1950s control rooms and switchgear and little old school details all being torn to bits and thrown in the skip.

[@derekp2674]

Really interesting video, thanks for sharing.

[@dtrain1634]

Wow! A job I would not like to do 😮 Credit to the professionalism of the team!

[@Boga217]

Bet that divers making some of the best money you can.

[@TheWtfnonamez]

I read about this in the Grasmere Gazette. That fella's name is Farouk, and he only started there as a minimum wage cleaner about two weeks previous. Pretty tight of them to chuck him in the pond to sweep up. They could have just got him a broom with a longer handle.

[@neilmckay8649]

I started my working career in a UK nuclear power station. A concern I have for decommissioning in the future are those facilities in developing countries with different working cultures.

[@irbycomputers]

@Wicked Nems Subpar? A bit uncalled for.

[@jimrudolph1582]

He who throws stones... ​@@Wicked_Nems

[@matthewdowning6009]

There aren’t really any developing countries with facilities like this. The U.K. has reprocessed more nuclear fuel than any other country, including the US. Most early U.K. nuclear power reactors were really plutonium factories that also made electricity as a byproduct. The Windscale piles didn’t even generate electricity, they just made Plutonium for nuclear weapons. Nobody considered the clean up from facilities like this when they were created. The nuclear arms race the main driver and the environmental impact wasn’t fully understood.

[@emag7837]

@@nothingissekret hanford site ...

[@deeremeyer1749]

@@matthewdowning6009 You're proud of that "world record" in "reprocessing"? ROFLMAO. Proud of the "air-cooled" part of that "reprocessing" too? Plutonium AND electricity? Using "air cooling? DO TELL! Those shitpiles made Chernobyl look "safe". Only the "air cooling" and the lack of actual reactor cores and control rods made them "meltdown-proof", lol. Given the HUGE "MUFs" - Material Unaccounted For - those plutonium "breeders" and all other "legacy facilities" in the British "nuclear industry" WOULD have had IF any material had ever been "accounted for" to begin with and the major "catching up" the limeys had to do in order to be "trusted" with "imported" nuclear materials and how key a "world record" in "reprocessing" was to making the books "balance" and the fact that the limeys would have plutonium "reserves" by the tons IF any of those "breeders" would have been remotely "successful" at "reprocessing" reactor-grade uranium into "weapons grade" plutonium AND the "nuclear engineers" would have been "water cooling" the FUEL and "air cooling" the depleted uranium "nuclear waste" instead of the other way around it goes without saying that the "world record" for "reprocessing" like MOST limey "accomplishments" and "achievements" is far more probable to be ON PAPER ONLY AND "SCIENCE FANTASY" IN THE REAL WORLD.

[@jeanwonnacott2718]

They are crazy!! Talk about courage..😊😊.

[@kopterflug-inspection]

Amazing Underwater Works!

[@Chiavaccio]

Great!!👏👏👏👏

[@dickoon]

Some top quality smog monster accents there. Keep up the good work, proud of you.

[@philldear3346]

Apparently the chap who dived into the pond in the 1950s is still alive and living in Seascale He is a very elderly gentleman

[@buggerlugz6753]

does he have a lovely glow to him?

[@petergibbons607]

why are they spraying water on the diver as he enters?

[@Boga217]

Right...I was kinda like hmmmm weird

[@magmajctaz1405]

Is the sludge actually nuclear waste? I thought spent fuel was still in rod form. Or is this sludge just the normal accumulation of dust and debris that typically collects on surfaces?

[@jonasghafur4940]

It’s the latter. Nuclear fuel varies in form, but in most cases is constructed from small, cylindrical pellets of solid fuel. In general, it stays in this form, but due to the vast particle flux those materials are expose to inside the reactor, all materials erode over time. Some materials also form new, often unstable isotopes in this extreme of an environment. Thus, it’s inevitable that some fraction, a tiny one nonetheless, will somehow escape containment. But just being able to send humans down there is a testament to the success of containment overall.

[@christopherleubner6633]

The sludge is probably from years of accumulated debris. The fuel assemblies are made of zirconium and won't corrode. This fuel pool looks like it hadn't seen actual use in literally years 😮

[@jonasghafur4940]

@@christopherleubner6633 not in this case. The windscale reactor was the first of its kind in Britain and primarily intended as a breeding reactor, its construction is VERY unlike later designs. The fuel rods were only encapsulated in Aluminium. Even more shockingly, they even reduced the thickness of the aluminum layer somewhere in the window of operation. Unthinkable today, a true testament of the work that got this site to the point of allowing human divers in ANY way.

[@jmackmcneill]

Yes, the sludge is nuclear waste, No, it is not **serious** nuclear waste. The concern is that in all the low level sludge there could be hidden a chunk of high level stuff... that is what the BBQ tongs and bucket are for.

[@scuba_steve73]

Doesnt even have dry gloves, just builders latex coated work gloves. The power of water to protect from radiation. Wow.

[@buggerlugz6753]

Bet the waters always nice and warm.... :)

[@sibre72]

...and what did they do with the waste? how radioactive was the pond? how many more ponds need decontaminating? what is Carl's surname, and why wasn't it included? This video prompts more questions than it answers.

[@BigDickMark]

It's just Carl. No surname. Like Cher or Madonna.

[@johnnorth9355]

The waste does not disappear and has to be stored again somewhere. Future generations take note.

[@Thesupermachine2000]

They are to busy writing down issues that were caused by global warming.

[@oBCHANo]

All of the significant nuclear waste the world has produced so far is like 30 meters cubed, it's practically nothing and is easily dealt with, or at least it could be if it weren't for inbred luddites holding back the construction of nuclear waste sites.

[@user-mu8mr6rk8c]

What I've seen is clearly a task of robots! In Germany unbelievable!!!

[@xiamaramu1538]

after Sellafield is shut down, will the people who worked there move to jobs at the nuclear waste dump where that might be build?

[@LuxAudio389]

LMAO. Yes they're Nuclear Gypsy's. As far as where it may be built-Not Australia. They don't want that BS on their continent. Maybe the executives at Shellafield want it.

[@martintimothy1915]

Very fancy scaffolding ..

[@mwethereld]

@4:55 the counts are tiny! ive had more outside on a beach, and hundreds more on a flight! a HUGE testament to the Nuclear Safety Systems and controls they have in place!

[@wildweasel3001]

Transparency+1

[@DoItWithPaulie]

I wonder what the divers hourly rate is??

[@psychosis7325]

Unsure about these guys, I would assume not a lot at this stage, but I know blokes in oil that have retired after a single dive. Is trillions of dollars in energy so being the one person capable of doing stuff at a certain level you can ask for as much as you want to a certain extent.

[@user-zi8wh3wv2q]

Ryan is getting a sunburn from the camera lights

[@siberx4]

It's a fascinating point that the water provides strong shielding from the remaining radioactivity compared to air; in hindsight this is obvious, but I had not previously considered it. I wonder if there are other scenarios where deliberately flooding a radiation-affected area would make it easier to get either robotic or human workers in the space to remediate. Obviously the tricky part is ensuring the water stays contained in spaces that may not have been designed for it (unlike these ponds) but perhaps is a worthwhile design consideration for future plants; ensure they're encased in a watertight tub so that they can be flooded if necessary both for cooling and to ease access.

[@BrodyLuv2]

You have no idea what you are talking about mate.

[@HappyBear376]

I'd enjoy that.

[@dimitrisc8749]

My god, I wouldn't even want to sleep in the same bed with these divers...

[@aaroncosier735]

The Drysuit prevents any physical contamination, and they seem to be getting acceptably low levels of radiation. Obviously they get a very thorough wash down and radiation scan before opening the suit. More concerning is the fact that they are needed. Storing spent fuel materials long term has greatly exceeded any design capacity, and the facilities were not designed with easy cleanup of disintegrating fuel assemblies in mind. It's great that they are doing it, but overall it's lousy that things were permitted to get this bad in the first place.

[@JamesWilson-yr3ep]

I'm still waiting for electricity so cheap that it wouldn't need to be metered (Which represents unfulfilled promises by politicians, not Sellafield workers of course)

[@matthewdowning6009]

If enough time was spent perfecting a power reactor design and then that design was stuck to and made over and over with only a few design tweaks. And everyone didn’t try to stop them being built whenever anyone tried, and they were paid for by the state and operated by private companies… then the electricity might well be too cheap to meter. These pond have absolutely nothing to do with electricity generation though!

[@aaroncosier735]

@@matthewdowning6009 Nah, not even in a best case. Nuclear works, but there are upper limits on how well. It costs a lot, especially when contractors are not penalised for exceeding budget. In the US and most other nations they *are* paid for by the state, and operated by "private" companies and that has produced some of the biggest construction and operating cost blowouts on record. *these* ponds may have nothing to do with electricity generation. Civilian nuclear generation has much bigger ponds, globally, and none are a fine example of anything except constipation and an unwillingness to face the true costs.

[@handyandy6050]

Percentage tax on "zero" not very lucrative for the government!

[@theairstig9164]

It was not a promise by anyone. Read the original quote

[@user-bn7ws2gi2j]

Believe that they are making a new housing estate on the site when it's demolished in a few years time..Believe that the house prices are going to be high on this site

[@Forbidaxe]

One day, power will come from a ZeroPointModule like that from the TV show Stargate, wouldn't that be great, no waste or worry, just power.

[@MrSlartybartfast42]

so a dose per dive of 0.1mSV means up to 100 dives per year 0.1 mSv = 1 chest x-ray = 10 days exposure to (average) background radiation ALARP at work!

[@phitzwellthundercock3894]

That’s right folks safety first! 🤦‍♂️

[@fenixfp40]

Good luck with that🤔

[@LuxAudio389]

Lol Yup 😬

[@cascadianrangers728]

So they can build a whole separate training rig, but they cant afford to pump enough light into the contaminated pond to refract and give the divers enough light to see what they're doing?

[@ptonpc]

Every use high beams while driving in fog? Just dumping more light into a contaminated fluid, with stuff floating in it, will merely succeed in blinding said diver. Do you honestly think people smart enough to plan all this and build the infrastructure necessary to do so, would not consider lights if they would have been any use?

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

They don't need more light, what they need is better filtration. The fact that the water is turbid is absolutely ridiculous given their budget.

[@ChrisBigBad]

Why IS there sludge? Shouldn't everything be squeaky clean and nothing have bits crumbling off of it?

[@CA-Premium]

Why is there sludge? Because they threw all sorts of stuff into the pond without recording what it was. It then decayed and ended up as sludge, i think a lot of it was cladding of fuel from magnox fuel.

[@ChrisBigBad]

@@CA-Premium Yes, of course. As you do. Very safe all this. I see a pattern... Germany (where I live) has made a super fool of themselves with their plans, experiments and everything else around the final disposal of all every kind of nuclear waste. Putting sites up for selection just to spite the GDR against the scientists decisions. Just throwing barrels down a black hole and whatnot. While I do think that nuclear is a nice bridge technology to get rid of fossil, and - yes - so far only one reactor affecting Europe has exploded, we should get rid of this mess as fast as possible. Cannot trust us greedy, clumsy, stupid humans with dangers like THIS. Ah, went on a bit of a rant there. :D Thanks

[@jooch_exe]

Some fuel or part of the assemblies oxidize in water, turning into sludge.

[@Tuberuser187]

With the dates (they mentioned the last time divers entered was before the other facilities where completed) and descriptions it sounds like they are working on the oldest part of the site, "Windscale" where they had a air cooled graphite pile with ducts/channels passing though it, Uranium filled Aluminium canisters where pushed into the ducts/channels to react over time and form Plutonium and Tritium. Fresh canisters where added and this pushed the "cooked" canisters out of the back and into a pool to keep cool, prevent radiation leaks and reduce the risk of unplanned criticality and eventually removed and opened so the material could be extracted, in theory... It never worked quite right, sometimes canisters got wedged and stuck, burst, missed the pool and landed in the air ducts and a whole series of failures which culminated in one of the two piles catching fire which led to the total shutdown of that facility. They basically just left it all there rather than go to the time and expense of cleaning it up, burst and oxidized canisters the lot and it all basically sat there oxidizing and breaking down for decades until decommissioning started.

[@rubensano4860]

Magnesium tends to oxidise in water.

[@MHLivestreams]

Homer Simpson strikes again. I prefer to keep my genes intact. Lunacy.

[@soton5teve]

You need those spray machines that you spray the flasks with at 'Thorp' Sellafield, not a guy with a hose

[@owensmith7530]

It makes no sense to me why they're spraying the diver with water as they climb down into the pond. Surely there's only any value as they climb out? Any water you add to the pond becomes contaminated so you don't want to be adding to that needlessly.

[@johncharley9791]

And this is the problem, accountability by government and contractor responsibilities, the whole plant should have had a full and efficient not to mention effective safety case plan for step down decommissioning.

[@imchris5000]

the plan was to reproccess the waste to get the plutonium out for nuclear weapons but now people are against plutonium production so this waste just sits instead of being filtered to get all the very valuable elements out

[@johncharley9791]

@@imchris5000 At some point, someone will take advantage of this and utilise these resources, but for what, remains to be seen.

[@imchris5000]

@@johncharley9791 they are used mostly in the medical industry in cancer treatments. its part of why cancer treatment is so expensive there is only a limited amount of these elements available russia is the only country reprocessing waste to sell its individual elements

[@jmackmcneill]

Yes, and people during the Black Death should have washed their hands more. Hindsight is so useful.

[@johncharley9791]

@@jmackmcneill That would have been a good idea. But we live in more educated times.

[@bishopdredd5349]

Guess it’s own own fault we’re having to clean our own dirty mess,

[@paulharrison6417]

those guys are amazing but there will be several thousand people getting paid on the back of this for doing next to nothing because its sellafield!

[@cymbala6208]

I believe that you really try to make that job as safe as possible. But it will always stay a risky job with abnormal exposure to radiation. And regarding exposure of one single person, you can hardly prove a connection between exposure and possible consequences as for example cancer... It's a dilemma, and I know that someone has to do all that cleaning, unfortunately. I consider it a silent and hidden battle against the "ghosts of the past"...

[@derekp2674]

As mentioned in the video, the annual radiation dose limit for UK classified radiation workers is 20 milli-Sieverts (mSv) while the typical dose per dive was around 0.1 mSv. Naturally occurring sources of radiation provide an an annual average radiation dose of about 2 mSv to the members of the UK population, but that can vary according to where people live and other factors, including dose uptake during airline flights. So, for projects like this, the benefits of the work must significantly outweigh the risks from radiation exposures - or regulatory approval for the work will not be granted.

[@cymbala6208]

​@derekp2674 yes, it's the same dose limit per year here in Germany (20mSv). Those 0.1 mSv per dive can be roughly compared to an x-ray of the chest. Well, that's not much, but over time it will sum up. And I guess, the divers are not old men, but younger people.

[@bobeyes3284]

I don't care how much those guys get paid, its not enough.

[@airsoftwwbde]

Why not use a Robotic arm for this type of work? Seams strange letting humans do this work, i assume it was just cheaper sending a human than building a robotic arm that then does the work slower (but saver) than the human.

[@Tgspartnership]

humans are incredibly dextrous

[@aaroncosier735]

They said they had been using robots, but there were limitations on what they could do. They removed as much material as possible to minimise exposure risks for the human divers.

[@ptonpc]

Listen to what they say.

[@lukea666]

Pump the water out.

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

1:40 he's not, uh, vacuuming up spent fuel that leaked. No way. There's no way a human would try that, too dangerous... 4:31 talking about multiple Sieverts...Holy Sh...yep, they are vacuuming up spent fuel! My word the people who ran Sellafield in the past were criminally irresponsible!

[@Linuxhippy2]

this video is a great example, why nuclear power will never ever be as cost effective as it was once thought to be.

[@final3119]

lol cumbria

[@jimmydcricket5893]

Nuclear is safe energy😂

[@wispa1a]

"could be" Modern nuclear is

[@LuxAudio389]

Nuclear energy is cheap too. Until you have to clean it up. 😂

[@wispa1a]

@@LuxAudio389 TBH that was on the USSR for not building containment like most others do around a reactor.

[@oBCHANo]

Yep, it is.

[@RogierYou]

They paid $35 hr

[@BigDickMark]

But they get a pizza party once year.

[@AggrarFarmer]

thats a joke only 35$ and get cancer later.

[@magneticnorth6917]

if the diver gets cancer at some point after such dive he can sue you for millions. Oh wait, he probably signed an affidavit... didn't he? it is inherently reckless to risk human lives like that, his suit is not even top grade protection. some jobs are for robots only

[@richardfife8192]

Yes this is where a part of your tax goes. Biggest blag and over costing you could ever imagine.

[@krashd]

I imagine you prefer just abandoning it and leaving it to fall further into disrepair then? No? Then shut up.

[@aaroncosier735]

What corners would you cut to make it cheaper? Who will insure you?