What If You Swim in a Nuclear Spent Fuel Pool? - Nuclear Engineer Reacts

Original Video @xkcd_whatif • What if you swam in a ...

[@RFalhar]

About the "diver" incident. Lots of the safety measures he talks about were adopted because of this incident. When you read the report on it, most of it's recommendations for improvement match with what he describes.

[@akizeta]

"Every safety rule is written in blood."

[@X13565]

Wish he considered this when he made the video...

[@TheAgamemnon911]

This. ...there are two types of achievements: 1) getting a thing named after you did something smart. 2) getting a procedure implemented after you did something stupid.

[@riccardo9953]

@@TheAgamemnon911 making the world a safer place one dumb idea at a time

[@themanhimself3]

@@riccardo9953 Thank you for your service. Can't write safety rules without some spilled blood.

[@greenlight2k]

In conclusion: The biggest potential hazard in a Nuclear Spent Fuel Pool is *you*

[@Tekdruid]

The spent fuel pool is more afraid of you than you are of it?

[@official-obama]

you are probably more radioactive than the water

[@nicholasscott3287]

Nah, the biggest danger is the armed guard shooting you for trespassing.

[@seancarter6492]

How sad is it that that rings true for ABSOLUTELY E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G!!!! People screw up everything.

[@Ne1vaan]

The most dangerous element is the human element.

[@tehbeard]

I believe the bit about "not agreed on what to do with dry casks" is leaning more on the general public's reaction of "god no, don't do store it within a 100 miles of me" and fear of "glowing green goop" than a lack of sound proposals etc.

[@fallout921]

Plus this what if was pretty old if I recall correctly

[@Gamer3427]

@@fallout921 Yea, I think the What If episodes that are getting animated are pretty old from their earlier What If books, and are basically just some of the more popular ones they answered getting video format.

[@TheRealXXDarknezz]

AFAIK it's more about the question where and how do we store it so that humans will not dry to investigate it in the future

[@Leyrann]

Well, in that case, I've said before in multiple places that I'm fine with them building a nuclear power plant in my backyard. I'll add to that that I'm also fine with them building a nuclear waste storage facility in my backyard. Assuming it's up to modern standards for those things, of course.

[@TuriGamer]

well in germany they keep wanting to throw it into old salt mines that will fill with water in a few years cause they are mentally unwell

[@Chetverikov]

The author of XKCD is a former NASA employee so I suspect the research reactor in question at the end is probably somewhere in the DOD/DOE sphere as opposed to, say, a university and thus much more likely to be high security. I'd much rather try to break into Berkeley than, say, the nuclear research portion of the Idaho National Laboratory.

[@BrooksMoses]

Yup, though I'd guess (without really knowing) that Berkeley would also be a bad choice as universities go because they work so closely with LLNL.

[@Sylfa]

Well, I don't know. Berkeley has a robotics department. Just saying, if the choice is between armed guards and a bunch of robots hunting you down, one would be much quicker and less scary.

[@andregroo]

It's also possible that was just an hyperbole from his friend.

[@calummcconnell7313]

⁠@@andregroo if armed guards are the norm at commercial reactors, and only absent from most research reactors because they’re on college campuses, then it being hyperbole isn’t the most logical explanation

[@Mr.Sparks.173]

​@calummcconnell7313 and if the research reactor belonged to the United States department of defense, you're dammed right they got armed guards. Not only to safeguard the radioactive material, but to safeguard whatever research the military is up to. L

[@ultrametric9317]

This is one of your best videos. First, the guy at XKCD is not a bullshitter at heart. Second, you provide a lot of excellent information in a short time.

[@tfolsenuclear]

Thanks, I’m glad you liked it so much!

[@trevorjrooney]

Yeah, Randall Munroe is the guy behind XKCD and he used to work for NASA in some capacity, I forgot exactly what but for some reason I think it related to physics or engineering.

[@spugintrntl]

​@@trevorjrooney I think it was robotics.

[@bertblankenstein3738]

Very interesting stuff.

[@DavidMuri-lm5vy]

​@@tfolsenuclear That 2010 Swiss nuclear plant insadent is the definition of: "the people who have to swim close to the bottom of a spent nuclear fuel pool need to carry a radiation counter with them at all times inside of the spent nuclear fuel pool!" 😅😅😂😂🤣🤣

[@WackoMcGoose]

TIL that, even in the same room as the hottest hot stuff in a nuclear facility, you're still far more statistically likely to die of _lead_ poisoning than of radiation sickness.

[@nibs7252]

Rapid-onset traumatic lead poisoning

[@TheSpookiestSkeleton]

Potentially contract mesothelioma depending on if the people maintaining the place give a care or not

[@Catflers]

one day i'll escape from homestuck

[@pierrecurie]

@@nibs7252 Hypovolemic shock would get to you long before lead poisoning.

[@wingracer1614]

@@nibs7252 That's known as bleeding to death or trauma.

[@stevesmith4600]

An "F-Me zone" ... that either sounds really cool, or really bad depending on the context.

[@WackoMcGoose]

Depending on how something got in there, it could be both!

[@Sho-td8wg]

I'm scared of what an "F-ME" monitor is.

[@TheBackyardChemist]

@@WackoMcGooseThe tales that ER doctors tell...

[@user-rw2hi8es8d]

an F-me zone sounds like a pretty good time tbh

[@loganwoodxyz]

Because if you drop FOD in the zone, your manager says “oh f- me”

[@jfbeam]

A word on "struggling to recycle"... Solar and wind farms "struggle" to find anyone willing to _PAY_ for the recycling. Virtually everything about them _can_ be recycled. For the record, high level spent nuclear fuel can be recycled ("reprocessed") as well. We don't because it's expensive. Similarly, no one wants to recycle styrofoam because it's so low density it costs a fortune to transport it. ('tho there are specialty trucks with equipment to process it into dense blocks, but it faces the same cost problems.)

[@RoundShades]

The foam thing, believe it or not, is wrong. This is coming from a furniture warehouse recycling worker, yeah I'm a lowlife so stop reading. But yeah, we have a mediocre electric furnace with a styrofoam shredder and a hot rotating chute. It poops thick white turd looking styrogoo into a square metal frame, where it cools into a brick like dense glass, and we would stack those 3x4x4 and sell them to the local waste management for $500... UNTIL we gave a local buyer a tour and they offered $1000 per stack of bricks. So they're definitely not least-efficient-cost or unusable, despite that being a good guess if you were any average joe. It probably still costs a lot for the furnace and the cost to run the heat for it, but probably not 500 of electricity, and the machine eventually paid for itself certainly. It's only good if you have a massive supply of foam, which any furniture packaging related place would be creating. No matter what though, the same high volume of cardboard and plastic was absolutely a cost sink, could never be solved for profit. Not that I think it has to be profitable, a single percent of the military budget would be totally worth spending on eating the cost of proper recycling.

[@jfbeam]

@@RoundShades Then convince every trash department around the globe to equip every trash truck with an EPS "densifier". I didn't say it couldn't be recycled, but nobody will _collect_ it for recycling. ('tho they waste the same space and fuel collecting is as trash for landfills.)

[@nukegator7274]

We don't reprocess spent fuel because of Jimmy Carter. He was worried about nuclear proliferation even though other countries reprocess their spent fuel.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

Randall might be a cartoonist, but he really knows his stuff.

[@ghyslainabel]

And when he does not know his stuff, he knows where to find good information about it.

[@88porpoise]

I disagree. Randall quite often doesn't know his stuff. But he knows how to do the research and get in touch with people who do know that stuff.

[@jort93z]

Eh, he just rsearches the videos and asks people that know their stuff.

[@rasurin]

Why is... This being presented as something bad? ​@@jort93z

[@Leyrann]

@@88porpoise For the part that we can see, Randall knows to convey accurate stuff to us consumers of comics, books, videos or whatever.

[@BrittTheFurry]

Sooo, in conclusion... If you manage to get on site, somehow get in the building of the spent fuel pool, the chance for you to take a swim in the pool is close to zero due to the lead concentration in the air rather than radiation. With a high chance of death within seconds if you make a run for the pool

[@JamesPerkins]

All those heavy metals are extremely toxic when you get enough concentration in (what's left of) your bloodstream...

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Brass, not lead. I doubt security would be using shotguns

[@fantakilla1]

​@@dojelnotmyrealname4018the outer casing might be brass but it will still be a lead bullet a small percentage of bullets might be copper or steel but those are rarer

[@wingracer1614]

@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 Copper, not brass. And if that copper jacket tears off (not uncommon) you have lead in you. Or more specifically, a lead/tin alloy. US military is moving to lead free in some of it's bullets (7.62mm Nato to be precise) but that process is far from complete

[@gavros9636]

@@wingracer1614 Full Metal Jacket?

[@ChipNRat]

As someone who worked with nuclear materials in the "oh my god" when Randall Munroe (XKCD) mentioned the piece of tubing near the reactor core was exactly the same reaction I had. Right down to the close-eyes, cringe, then "oh my god". Great video. Randall Munroe is a knowledgeable person who makes topics like these accessible to the average person and doesn't get a lot wrong, but obviously doesn't have the same experience as someone who works in the field.

[@teresashinkansen9402]

I think the research reactor is so heavily guarded because they usually have highly enriched fuel, significantly higher enrichment than commercial power plant reactors.

[@robertsneddon731]

There's been a big international effort over the past decade or so to convert research reactors to less-enriched fuel with the original HEU cores and plutonium sources being returned to national authorities for safe and secure disposal.

[@davidg4288]

I'm pretty sure the civilian nuclear plants I've been in would not shoot you if you jumped into the spent fuel pool. They'd fish you out as if you fell in accidentally, then they'd make sure you weren't contaminated, then they'd most likely have you arrested for something and they'd 100% certainly file all the necessary paperwork to make sure you never entered a nuclear plant anywhere ever again and change the procedures at their plant regarding who can get near the fuel pool.

[@robertsneddon731]

@@davidg4288 Place I worked at a long time back had a swimming-pool reactor and, the story went, someone once fell into it while it was running. Supposedly a safety rail around the top gave way as they leaned over to hook a sample on a pulley line to drop it down to the core for irradiation. Their leg went into the water as they pivoted and grabbed the rail upright, stopping full immersion. They lost half a pair of trousers and Health Physics had a field day testing out their emergency procedures.

[@schwingedeshaehers]

@@davidg4288 and if they climb the wall to get to it. i think that was the scenario with the shoot

[@perryallan3524]

@@davidg4288 I fail to see how anyone other than plant staff cleared for entry into the Auxiliary Building at the plants I worked at could even get to the Spent Fuel Pool without being stopped by security - and yes shot if they did not stop prior to that. The one research reactor I toured many decades ago did not have armed guards so I can see people getting in and swimming in the fuel pool.

[@sunsetdev]

This is your most on-point and informative video. Awesome work. For anyone wondering, the diver did not experience any injury as a result of the incident, nor are they at any increased risk of long-term health complications.

[@Taladar2003]

Are we sure that facepalming for the rest of your life every time you think about that incident doesn't cause long-term health complications?

[@Sylfa]

@@Taladar2003 To be fair, that was probably the supervisors risk. I mean, they both were likely following the protocols that were in place 14 years ago. Perhaps the diver regretted taking the actions suggested for a while, until they knew they hadn't sustained any real harm. But it's hard to follow the regulations that were put in place after the incident, so… More of a good thing that it happened with such a relatively safe outcome, if they had been more cautious the protocols might not have been improved at that time. Who knows what would potentially happen to cause them to be scrutinized instead.

[@KravKernow]

"Are there guards supervising this pool?" "Absolutely." "Lifeguards?" "Er...depends on your perspective."

[@bigpatty823]

Realistically speaking the spent fuel building is usually unoccupied. Just the occasional visit from RP or fire surveillance.

[@perryallan3524]

@@bigpatty823 In a lot of US plants the Spent Fuel Pool is part of the Auxilary building which has people moving around all the time (operations, security, fire rounds, maintenance, engineers and planners, etc,). At both plants I worked in where I had access to the Auxiliary Building anyone could enter the SFP area and as long as you properly divested yourself of loose objects, filled out the FME logs, taped and lanyarded up, etc. you cold just walk around the spent fuel pool without anyone questioning you (I was the Spent Fuel Pool Cooling and Structures engineer at one plant - and routinely walked the Spent Fuel Pool). There were no special barriers - just a yellow line on the floor and warning/instruction signs on SFP area entry requirements. There were closer yellow lines painted that you could not cross closer to the pool without wearing a life jacket without violating procedures.

[@ThatJay283]

an F-ME zone sounds like something a person supervising would say when something slipped past and ended up in the pool 😅

[@RoydeanEU]

"There is no life guard on duty" 😂🙃

[@Bacon17855]

"Children under the age of 10 must be attended by someone over the age of 16"

[@jmonsted]

You know, i suspect that's false, just not the typical "babe in red swimsuit" type :)

[@andrewholden1501]

Well, if they gun you down before you reach the pool, you're not likely to drown. I guess that might count after a fashion.

[@yarati4584]

As an engineering student, I visited that very same nuclear power plant that had the incident with the diver. And on the railing around the pool in which the reactor core is, they did actually have a sign saying something like "children under 14 are forbidden to swim without adult supervision." I will always remember that, because I love this type of humor.

[@Wile-.E.-Coyote]

It's a legitimate concern. Whenever I do high hazard work in the pool area I'm usually in a plastic suit. And I really wouldn't want to try and swim in it.

[@mikefochtman7164]

Retired now but we HAVE put a diver in the pool. Looking for some problem with the liner (I forget the details as I wasn't directly involved). We have also disassembled a fuel assembly (BWR) to remove a known 'leaker' pin. Got some 'attaboy' from corporate for replacing the pin and returning the bundle to service next refueling. Leaker got sealed off stored in separate part of pool.

[@Ezullof]

Lots of old incidents have become study cases, and the very reason we don't do things this way anymore. I don't know for the US, but in Europe many events categorized as incidents weren't even actual incidents, they were operations that were reevaluated later as being potentially dangerous, or even just too dangerous compared to alternatives, for example simply because it meant having a human performing the operation on site instead of using remotely controlled assets. But let's not pretend that we are enjoying decades of refining those procedures. It's the opposite of the oil industry, nuclear keeps getting safer (in part because of the public pressure) while the oil industry keeps getting away with worse and worse practices because it's not perceived to be as dangerous, despite insanely risky operations. Like, we'd never ask anyone to risk losing their arms at a nuclear plant, that's a major incident. Happens routinely in oil wells.

[@whateverwhenever8170]

​@@EzullofI always wondered I saw something on fracking and about how the materials they use end up being radioactive, not sure exactly what it didn't make sense to me and I didn't have a chance to follow up

[@xlgapelsin6173]

​@@whateverwhenever8170well to put this simply. A coal plant relesses more radiation into the air then a nuclear power plant

[@WhiteWeaseI]

Every time you say "liquid control rods" I just imagine pepto bismol, but for reactors.

[@JamesPerkins]

The weird thing about pesto bismol is that it's ever so slightly radioactive. Bismuth is a heavy metal which scientists once believed had stable isotopes, but turns out they are unstable (radioactive) but with a much, much longer half life than thorium or uranium. And by all rights bismuth is a heavy metal and should be pretty toxic like lead... but it's surprisingly not very toxic compared to other heavy metals. Fun facts about bismuth.

[@lettuce7378]

i mean, basically correct lol

[@Octa9on]

reminds me of the informational cartoon about the Fukushima reactor made for Japanese kids

[@Merennulli]

Thank you for covering this one. The moment I saw it, I was hoping for your take on it. I read the XKCD What If article it's adapted from years ago, and it getting animated was wonderful.

[@robsquared2]

Good to know. Never do an "ooh shiny" in one of these pools. Also: put a vibrating motor on your radiation alarm.

[@gonnaenodaethat6198]

I love the guys friend's answer. Such an engineer's answer x3 Just hears the question and thinks to himself- "What do you mean swim int the spent fuel pool? The bastard gonna die of lead poisoning long before reaching the room"; Absolute fucking legend xD

[@KevinLyda]

Note to self: don't take job in Swiss nuclear reactor.

[@MiTheMer]

Yee.. looking at an article on that incident, a lot of the measures T.Folse mentions have been installed, but only after the incident... Supposedly the diver was not briefed not to approach foreign objects and saw it as part of the standard procedure of clean up after the scheduled task was done.

[@Qsie]

Definitely not _in_ any nuclear reactor... _At_ a nuclear reactor, though, sure 😂

[@MakooWallinen]

I would work at a Nuclear Power Plant, but I would never work inside of any reactor anywhere.

[@iceblade019]

But it’s also 14 years ago, people and the entire industry learn about stuffs especially with accidents

[@davidg4288]

@@MakooWallinen Not for long anyway!

[@perryallan3524]

I'm also an engineer who has worked in nuclear power plants (in the USA). I was the SFP Cooling and Structures system engineer as well. I've walked around the SFP many times as part of routine walk-downs. At our plant there was a table where you divested yourself of all loose items, taped up, and logged in whatever you were taking in, and brought out. Even our pens and clipboards had to be on lanyards attached to ourselves. I know of two cases where divers were put into the pool to do work underwater. Extensive briefings and they did not get close to any recent fuel (in fact Reactor Engineering/Operations did a fuel assembly shuffle to move rather old spent fuel to the area being dived on). It also seemed that about every 5 years according to verbal history someone fell in and went swimming until they got them out (you are correct about the life jacket requirement - our plant had a yellow line on the floor adjacent to the pool that you could not enter without a life jacket on. In my plant no one would pick up any debris without specific direction from Radiation Protection. I was once the designated person to recover some hot debris, bag it, and hand it out to RP that was discovered hung up in the tubesheet of the RHR heat exchanger that was opened for eddy current inspection - and was specifically briefed on that and we had worked out which tools I would try to use 1st before resorting to hands as the last resort (and I had film badges taped to my fingers and back of my hand, and lower arm). However, one thing I have learned is that other countries have different standards and rules. It does not surprise me that the diving event occurred as described, nor that the presence of this debris was unknown. It sounds to me that it was a piece of a retractable neutron flux thimble tube which can need replacing due to fretting damage as it can vibrate against the lower core plate structure and the bottom plate of the fuel assembly. I was also the engineer who ran the plant eddy current program and know all about thimble tube fretting - and that you could reposition them several times (shorten them) to move the fretting area to new unfretted tube location before you had to replace them because they no longer extended far enough into the fuel assembly for neutron flux monitoring. A piece of this thimble tube from inside the reactor would be screaming hot for many years - if not decades. Several decades ago they came up with chrome platted thimble tubes which virtually stopped the fretting issue for new thimble tubes installed. Regarding leaking fuel rods where the zirconium cladding had failed in operation. We had at least one leaking fuel assembly in its own sealed cask parked in one end of the SFP. I was loaded into the cask underwater and the lid was bolted on underwater with remote tools. It still took some years to clean up the SFP water from the radioactive contamination from that leaking fuel rod. Have a great day,

[@user-kh7zo2mk8x]

I remember interning at a nuclear plant in college, and while I still am pro-nuclear, I was there for some rather interesting events. In one case, a crane operator got too close to a surveillance camera and smashed it - over the reactor vessel. Needless to say, the outage was extended while they figured out how to retrieve the remains.

[@enhydralutra]

Given that the diving incident was 14 years ago, it makes me wonder if this is a case of "safety regulations are written in blood."

[@computersales]

Forget gamer girl bath water. Nuclear spent fuel pool water sounds pretty good. 🤤😂

[@fishHater]

How about Gamer girl nuclear spent fuel bath water?

[@computersales]

@@fishHater the world is not ready for that much power. 🤯

[@everythingsalright1121]

@@fishHater so we teach a fallout deathclaw to play video games then give her a bath? Fallout 2 had sentient drathclaws...so...

[@davidmescher2526]

The Switzerland reactor incident ended up with an INES rating of 2.

[@Void_Dragon]

10:15 fun fact, that used to be a real product when atomic power was brand new. It was a energy drink sold in the 1920s that was water with (flavorless) Radium, a highly radioactive element. Thousands like Eben Byer suffered “Radium Jaw”

[@DerKiesch]

There was also "radioactive" toothpaste. For a radiating smile ;-) In talks I give I typically points out that the theory behind this is quite sound. It's true that radiation will tend to kill bacteria in your mouth - the problem is just that it also kills your mouth along with them ^^

[@immikeurnot]

@@DerKiesch Toothpaste, cosmetics, etc. etc.

[@Tekdruid]

1920s was rife with all kinds of radioactive tomfoolery, until people realized the only superpowers you are likely to get from ionizing radiation are necrosis and cancer.

[@everythingsalright1121]

Radioactive paint was used on clock hands historically as it would glow in the dark, and the people whod paint them would suffer the ill effects of radiation. Smoke detectors also are pretty radioactive (but if youre not shoving your hand into the middle after taking it apart youll be fine). Probably the most well known one is fiestaware which used uranium to glaze and make them shiny. Theyre especially dangerous if you put acidic food on them as it can "loosen" the coating and get on the food

[@DerKiesch]

@@everythingsalright1121 modern smoke detectors don't contain radioactive Am-241 any more.

[@xion1629]

I really wish this channel was reaching a larger audience. I've watched for months now and, despite having already been dispelled of most nuclear energy myths, I learn a ton. Its a lot different to have a specialist with experience discussing things in contrast to other content thats usually just a deep dive "research" project for the creator.

[@Leadvest]

Just being correct isn't enough to make it big on the platform, viewers on here who are willing to sit and learn out of sheer curiosity are relatively rare. The people who make it big on the platform cater to a broader audience, they learn communications tools, bring the tone of the language down to the minimum education level of the audience, became storytellers, learned how to develop narrative structures, how to keep dynamism in dramatic pacing, did voice training, they pay animators, they take sponsorship deals. All sorts of stuff that presumably didn't necessarily feel like their bread and butter at first. I really appreciate experts on the platform, but I don't think we should expect them to develop the specific interests necessary to optimally perform on the platform. These talking head videos have there own level of value that can't be quantified in views.

[@Verrisin]

had we discovered fission 100 years sooner, 99% of the safety precautions would not have been put in place, lol

[@therealkidboomer4165]

Thank you sir very much for sharing your information about these topics of nuclear things. It’s not every day you get to learn about nuclear plants and or other topics. Massive respect for you sir thank you again. ❤

[@tfolsenuclear]

You’re quite welcome!

[@LinusDropTips]

This is the first reaction video I've watched where someone has actually managed to keep my attention and made it really interesting/entertaining Keep up the quality content man 👍

[@Renard380]

This video is a breath of fresh air in a society of uninformed people who are guided by paranoia. Pure facts, no drama, no guessing no thinking, just someone who knows what he's talking about. Thanks!

[@joaomiguelalves4063]

Its refreshing to see (what i already expected) that XKCD is really good at the info on his comics.... Also hey great commentary :)

[@dolphin64575]

Thank you so much, Tyler, for getting this done so quickly! ❤ So interesting to learn about how the spent fuel is handled / handled differently in different countries

[@eTiMaGo]

Hahhaa thought of you immediately when I saw this posted :) I also want to thank you for what you're doing, my late uncle was also working in nuclear power and I found it fascinating, he was a huge part of my becoming a huge geek... Sadly he passed away some years back, so your uploads are kinda nostalgic in a weird way :)

[@ArtisChronicles]

I loved the answer his friend gave about the pool at their research reactor. While serious, it was actually funny.

[@Amiruny]

please dont stop doing that iconic intro!

[@rjstewart]

As soon as I saw the XKCD video, I knew I had to come to your channel! You didn’t disappoint !

[@zennok]

Informative video aside, I love "Huh? LOL" that showed on your face when the part about the gunshot wound came up

[@fettywop8265]

Reading this comic almost a decade ago, I never imagined I would be hearing a voiceover by the author plus animation and reaction/commentary from a nuclear engineer! Great video

[@Katariee]

Idaho National Lab has armed guards around their facility. But they also have more than just a few research reactors

[@ts_vexx6883]

Thanks for the perspective. I enjoyed that video from xkcd and your commentary was fun too! :)

[@rjstewart]

Your comments about the diver reminded me of when I was a medic a long time ago and we were taught “ if it’s wet and sticky and not yours don’t touch it” 😂

[@VaraNiN]

I usually really dislike reaction videos, but this actually added a lot of useful information, so thanks for the insights!

[@SoloRenegade]

but basically, you're saying he massively undersold just how safe it would be swim in a spent fuel pool. If anything , this just further proves nuclear power is the way to go, and anyone standing in the way of that doesn't actually care about the environment at all.

[@mrptr9013]

There are people that wholeheartedly believe the anti nuclear stuff. But the people making the bad faith propaganda are mostly grifters or people with skin in the energy game (oil barons and such)

[@SoloRenegade]

@@mrptr9013 Name one of these "oil barons". Most power plants don't use oil. They use natural gas, coal, etc.

[@AlcyonEldara]

Many arguments against nuclear power are BS, I agree. But this doesn't prove that nuclear power is "the way to go". I live in Belgium, we have a few nuclear reactors, and we are currently facing the major problems with this technology: 1) When they get old, sometimes they need to be closed for several months for various reasons. Every single time, we are facing risks of blockouts if the weather becomes extreme. 2) The war in Ukraine showed us why a highly centralized power production is a terrible idea, and how the nuclear power plants are really valuable military targets. 3) The actual cost isn't cheaper than green alternative, especially if you want a "safety net" to counter 1) and 2). 4) In densely packed countries, like Belgium, there isn't any site respecting all safety measures for new nuclear power plants. 5) In regions with regular natural disasters, this is always a terrible idea (hi Fukushima). 6) And let's not even talk about incompetence (hi Tchernobyl). In a "perfect World" where you could create a World Grid (or a large enough one) and spread your nuclear power plants across the Globe, sure. In a divided World full of wars, this is a terrible idea.

[@SoloRenegade]

@@AlcyonEldara 1) old outdated technology 2) nuclear is no more centralized than a solar field, like that one in TX that got wiped out. 3) yes it is. solar and wind are not cheap and must be replaced and rebuilt and maintained constatntly. the costs are already high and conprize a very small percentage of energy. Wind turbines comprise teh bulk of global platic waste already and can't be recycled. they are burned or dumped in massive landfills. 4) strawman, that's a cultural/people issue, not an issue with nuclear. just becauuse the belgians are irresponsible and lazy, doesn't make nuclear bad. 5) stop building power plants on fault lines then, and other high risk locations. again, strawman that has nothing to do with nuclear itself. 6) that's a repeat of #$ where you claimed Belgians are also incompetent. We're not so incompetent in the US with nuclear power. "Many arguments against nuclear power are BS" including yours apparently

[@DerKiesch]

@@AlcyonEldara I wouldn't call Tchernobyl "incompetence" I'd call it hubris. The problem was not incompetence itself but the hubris to believe that even if they did something wrong there could be no catastrophic failure.

[@nickgibson3451]

Hey Tyler, one of my favorite biology channels (Nanorooms) posted a video titled "Bringing Biology’s Molecules to Life Using Physics", and I think it would be interesting to have you bring atoms to life using physics alongside him as he describes way that computational biologists can simulate behavior on the nanoscale.

[@erictaylor5462]

2:30 If this "waste spent" fuel is so "hot" doesn't that mean there is still a lot of energy there? If there is still energy there isn't it still useful and thus *NOT* waste? For a long time the saw mills here in Oregon produced tons of saw dust. The mills had to either pay someone to haul it away, or they had to pay to burn it on site. So when a guy showed up offering to haul it away for free, they were like "Sweet, take as much as you want." But as he kept showing up taking their sawdust away for free they started thinking, "If he's hauling it away for free, maybe he'd be willing to pay for it. He'd discovered that if you take the sawdust and compress it under high pressure the resin in the saw dust will glue everything together into a dense solid log. Wrap the log in paper, put it into your fire place and Presto, you have a log thatr will burn for a precise amount of time. History is full of times someone finds a use for something that was once just waste.

[@ohdahngboi_2237]

It’s too hot to mindlessly dispose of but not enough energy in the rods to be used in the core for energy production and theirs not much use for spent uranium fuel. Saw dust and uranium rods aren’t the same thing and can’t really be compared in the same context

[@steveaustin2686]

@@ohdahngboi_2237 AIUI, spent fuel rods can be reprocessed to take out the uranium to make a new fuel rod, and the left over highly radioactive waste can then be stored. France does this, but the US foolishly has rules against this.

[@Stoney3K]

The diver story also sounds like it was in a small research reactor, not a commercial power-generating one, so the scale of it could have been significantly smaller.

[@steveaustin2686]

The pool story was from the Leibstadt nuclear power plant, in Leibstadt, Switzerland. The IAEA and ISOE both have info on this incident. Exposure of a worker in excess of statutory annual dose limits - IAEA Posted on: 02 September 2010 Unplanned Exposure During Diving in the Spent Fuel Pool - ISOE/EPRI ALARA Symposium 2011 power point presentation

[@GroovingPict]

when I saw they had posted this video I knew immediately you would do a reaction to it :p

[@jello3456543]

My experience visiting a university research reactor was pretty similar to Tyler's. Minimal physical security, certainly no armed guards. What we were told was that they ran the reactor (I think) twice a week, and at their enrichment level a potential thief would be dead before they go out the door. Of course, that was in the 90s. They could easily upgraded their physical security in the last 25 years.

[@adamsbja]

I went to college with an undergrad reactor, and the year before I got there some people had done an "expose" about how easy it was to talk their way in and smuggle a camera. What their video didn't show was all sorts of three-letter acronym folks knocking on their door the next morning. The students had done everything by the book: don't confront, watch where they go, and report it as soon as it's safe to do so.

[@RickyWallace]

Great video from a fellow GT alum. Subscribed! Go Jackets!

[@evanr.2586]

Hello Tyler. I'm a guy who designs fuel racks. I'd love to use divers more often for installing racks in pools, but plant RP won't let me. 😫 Great video BTW. It's nice to have someone who knows what they're talking about make a video on a nuclear energy topic.

[@MervynPartin]

I have worked in 3 British nuclear power stations. Being the Magnox natural uranium type of reactors, they were routinely refuelled on load, with the charge/discharge machine then releasing the spent fuel elements to the cooling pond skips. If a fuel element had any leaks then it was bottled before releasing to the cooling pond. Unlike the ponds with PWRs, the pond water was dosed with Caustic Soda to pH 11 so anyone swimming in it would find their skin dissolving!! Due to absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the pond water was passed through a water treatment plant, the effluent from which was monitored and discharged to the sea. It was once necessary for divers to perform underwater maintenance, but they had full body suits (although one managed to spring a leak) and the fuel skips had been moved to an adjacent bay with the door closed. Aluminium scaffold poles in the water were corroded, however. The freshly discharged fuel could be identified by turning out the lights and seeing the bright blue glare of the Cerenkov radiation.

[@Matthew-tg4uk]

if that supervisor worked for me I would sake him. oh how did I not know you when I was younger. so gentle so smart and so interested in science. your addictive persona is truly needed. legend.

[@Matthew-tg4uk]

im a science madness member. only met you on this channel due to your reviews of our member red. truly you have added knowledge to the world that most could not find. so much respect for you.

[@bronzovich]

Your content is great! Future nuclear engineer here! Cheers from Argentina!

[@More-Space-In-Ear]

I once worked on a nuclear plant shut down, my job was in the lagging box under the reactor, it took 13 people two weeks to undo 4 bolts, pack them and retighten, once the lead shielded door slid open we had about 3 minutes max until our alarms went off, it was while untightening a bolt a load of water started leaking over my face/mask i was told it was just cold water from the rod pond, 12 hour shifts with about 3-5 minutes work per day. After the job finished, we had to have a scan. It was a very noisy 10+ ton block of metal and was about 5 inches above my nose...I've never been right since!

[@dexterman6361]

I love that you elucidated what F-ME stands for, thank you :D!

[@burkaanc]

Safety depends a lot on where they are - my dad used to do some jobs in soviet nuclear reactors, fire alarms and such, he told a story of somebody finding an unmarked thick cable, the decision was to cut it with an axe as a result the only thing left of the axe was the wooden handle as it turned out to be some kind of major power cable.

[@Engy_Wuck]

according to the website of the swiss federal nuclear saftey inspectorate (ENSI) the 2010 incident happened in the fuel transfer pool during a maintenance shutdown. Translated by google translate: "During the maintenance shutdown, a diver carried out maintenance work in the fuel transfer pool. After completing this work, he collected loose material underwater as instructed. Among them was a pipe-like object about 30 cm long. The diver placed it in his tool basket. While the basket was being raised, a radiation protection worker measured the dose rate at the water surface. As the basket approached the surface of the water, the room radiation monitor triggered an alarm and the radiation protection measurement showed an increased dose rate. The basket was then lowered back to the bottom of the pool. The electronic dosimeter worn by the diver on his chest indicated a dose above the permissible annual limit. The evaluation of the dosimeters worn on the hands showed that the dose limit applicable to the hands according to the Radiation Protection Ordinance was significantly exceeded on the right hand." So yes, it happened...

[@scottvaughn7824]

I worked at Turkey Point for 30 years, everything spot on. I’ll have flashbacks in my dreams tonight. I was also heavily involved in the BACC program.

[@paulwesterman]

Really enjoyed this video! Subscribed 👍

[@moltres5740]

I think its important to note that SFP's only have Boric Acid if it is a PWR. Since BWR's don't control reactivity with borated water, there is no Boron in the SFP at those plants.

[@starfirei3356]

You keep predicting information he brings up right after lol.

[@D3AD1YF0RC31214]

That research reactor could've been a military one, which armed guards are probably guaranteed

[@apackofhoboes]

Lol the " f me zone" because if you are in the fuel storage pool you're saying "f me" for the next set of things you are going to have to go through with supervisors. 😂

[@kstricl]

I've got a pretty good idea of how techs on site talk about F.M.E. hazards...

[@MrCharles7994]

@3:00 Also by the time it's in dry casks most of the fuel is decayed. Within a century the material will be basically radioactive on the level of ore, not fuel. Radioactive fuel is actually remarkably easy to deal with policy wise in some ways because the process that makes it dangerous makes it inert; the more dangerous it is in the short term the less time you have to worry about it. It's the more medium level products (certain fission products that have million year half lives) that we don't really have a solution for, outside of separating them and burying them. If I remember 135 Cs in particular is a huge pain in the ass, but there are others.

[@MatthewSuffidy]

I always wondered about the handle-ability of nuclear fuel and Plutonium cores. At a fundamental level though nuclear fuel is a mix of U 235 and U238. My understanding is neutrons do have to cross the cladding if it were not removed and slow down with a moderator and then go back into another fuel rod for the chain reaction to take place? This kind of inherently means there has to be a basic amount of free neutrons popping outside of nuclear fuel?

[@mcblaggart8565]

What blows my mind about all this is that that bit of tubing was still THAT radioactive after 4 years. How dangerous something radioactive is is a direct function of how short its half-life is. A short half-life makes it dangerous but necessarily short-lived. That thing must have been crazily hot when it first came out of the reactor.

[@brendonharadon7728]

I live near one of america's previously largest and most famous nuclear facilities (think south western Washington state, it developed some fuel for WW2) and growing up, it was always hilarious to me to hear tourists and out of towners talk about the fear and concerns of the facility, made all the more funny because it hasn't been an "active" facility in decades. My favorite concern to hear was always that the river has to be radioactive because the site used the water in their system. I gave up trying to convince them the river was safe when I would explain that the water was used as closed circuit cooling, thus no rads and was usually converted to steam, and the water that was exposed was never returned without proper treatment and testing. Now I just say "Yup, but the orange three eyed fish sure taste good"

[@Dalenthas]

Spent fuel pools being referred to as "Eff Me Zones" made me laugh my butt off.

[@petemacarthur]

I once knew a guy called Doug. He had some crazy stories, I can tell ya!

[@mcpr5971]

I thought of you immediately when I watched that video. Thanks for reacting to it (pun intended). I have a question about the "second burned" and third burned fuel rods: after the first burn, do they get sent to the pool to fully cool off before they get reloaded?

[@truchiraqian]

His friend likely works for MURR, they utilize HEU for Mo-99 production and have armed guards throughout the facility.

[@cameroncochran1105]

You should do the story's about people getting sucked into cooling pools while diving

[@tgraymk]

The armed security part is really accurate if the research reactor facility in question is part of the NNL. ;)

[@sembalo1776]

Super insightful!

[@Spiderboydk]

Pretty accurate for "just a cartoonist" :-D

[@sethattun7196]

A quick google of 'leibstadt nuclear power plant august 31 2010' found a couple interesting results. Including what looks like a powerpoint from the plant describing the incident, safety procedures that didn't occur, and the plan on what to implement now. One of which is that they did not have an official procedure for collection of loose materials at the time and would develop one.

[@justabaldguy]

I don't know about you hosers, but I could watch Dave Thomas talk about nuclear stuff all day.

[@Thraim.]

11:40 Thank you, I commented about that on the original video.

[@x3of9]

Sounds like his friend might work at Oak Ridge.

[@RockstarRacc00n]

Research Reactor might have some pretty exotic elements: Plutonium, Americinium, Einstinium... all far more secure than enriched uranium.

[@Jaylinstallings]

We actually used cesium 137 in our source kit to check our radiacs for industrial radiation operations.

[@mikefochtman7164]

We had a big 'flap' one time when they went through to audit things and they couldn't account for an LPRM detector (BWR). Some of these are tracked very closely because some contain highly enriched uranium. We knew it was in the pool, SOMEWHERE but being HEU, we had to be able to state EXACTLY. We found it of course, but it was a serious issue.

[@mapu1]

I mean people go diving in Chernobyl all the time. Well used to anyways, now most people have switched to drones.

[@TheArmyKnifeNut]

That diver was definitely thinking "F ME".

[@steveschulte8696]

Most of the radiation outside the clad fuel modules would be neutrons and gammas. The alphas and betas are well contained in the fuel modules. The water is an excellent radiation shield for neutrons and gammas. There is a small amount of neutron emitting daughter products in spent nuclear fuel. There is a rule of thumb for the amount of activity (becquerels or curies) per watt of full power for uranium reactors. One curie (3.7 x 10^10 decays per second) of uranium 235 is equivalent to about a ton of material, exclusive of its own self shielding.

[@ghimmy47]

I worked with a young man who's last job was welding racks in spent fuel pools at Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant. He and his wife wanted kids. After three monsters (his word) they gave up.

[@meglukes]

100°F is my ideal hot tub temperature

[@TravisFabel]

I like that its called the F-ME zone. Too bad the killjoys says I am not allowed there.

[@ironman4do]

An F-ME zone? Is the spent fuel pool taking me to dinner first, or is this just a casual swim?

[@robhillen8007]

Every dosimeter I've seen only uses sound to indicate unsafe radiation levels, which has always seemed like it would be insufficient for areas with even moderately high background noise. The diver incident is one of the first stories I've heard that confirms that, which makes me wonder why additional indication methods aren't implemented, such as vibration or a bright flashing light?

[@shoryaagarwal677]

So, from a incident report from the relevant power plant He did have multiple dosimeters They were not teledosimeters He was not briefed about not touching unidentified objects and to stay inside the surveyed area of the pool The plant did not have a procedure for collection of loose materials in pools It also did not have tracking of lost hazardous materials

[@masterquake7]

If spent fuel rods still give off so much radiation and heat, then it seems they could still be used as fuel. Maybe they are no longer functional in a fission reactor, but they should be able to be put into another type where the energy could still be collected for a time to supplement what is normally put out by the fission reactor rather than keeping the rods in a pool to cool off and then into casks where they are left to still decay.

[@michaelmorris4515]

@17:00 Y-12 in Oak Ridge has an armed guard. It's a "research" reactor, but it's main purpose is manufacturing nuclear weapons. Perhaps that's the one his friend works at.

[@matthewbeasley7765]

The primary water and spent fuel pool water isn't necessarily acidic. Yes, it has boric acid in it. In some plants, lithium hydroxide is added to raise the pH to reduce corrosivity. Fun fact: They use isotopically separated lithium enriched in lithium 7 because lithium 6 can undergo fission and become tritium.

[@HelloNotMe9999]

Question: Of the main problem is the gaseous by products cracking the fuel pellets and risking damage to the fuel rod cladding, why do we not re-refine the spent fuel and put it back into service (with required new cladding, obviously)? As I understand it, only about 5% of the useful energy is obtained before the above condition occurs…

[@michellegiacalone1079]

The F/Me monitor keeps people from diving in the pool and being all like "Oh, eff me!"