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Subscribe to RSSThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday afternoon that it was investigating the "unplanned radiation exposures" of three workers on April 3, a week earlier, at the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Neb.
The NRC said it did not believe the exposure exceeded its limits.
"Workers removed a long tube contaminated with highly radioactive material through the bottom of the reactor vessel, rather than through the top as is usually done, triggering radiation alarms," the NRC reported. "The workers set the tube down and immediately left the area."
The Cooper plant has a single boiling-water reactor of General Electric design. (GE is a part owner of NBCUniversal, which owns half of msnbc.com.)
Here's a map of the plant, which is about 25 miles from Nebraska City, Neb., and south of Omaha.
The full release from the NRC:
NRC SENDS SPECIAL INSPECTION TEAM TO COOPER NUCLEAR STATION
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun a special inspection at the Cooper Nuclear Station to review the circumstances surrounding a maintenance procedure that led to unplanned radiation exposures to three workers. The plant, located near Brownville, Neb., is operated by the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD).
Inspectors, who began their work Monday, will look at the circumstances and decision-making by NPPD officials that led to the exposures, review the licensee’s response to the event, calculate the exposures the workers received and review corrective actions taken to prevent a recurrence.
The incident occurred on April 3, when workers removed a long tube contaminated with highly radioactive material through the bottom of the reactor vessel, rather than through the top as is usually done, triggering radiation alarms. The workers set the tube down and immediately left the area. The licensee does not believe the workers received radiation exposures in excess of NRC limits.
“We want to understand why normal work practices were not followed, resulting in unplanned radiation exposures to three workers,” said Region IV Administrator Elmo E. Collins. “We want to take a look at the decision-making that contributed to this event.”
The team consisting of two NRC inspectors, began work Monday and will probably spend several days at the plant. They will write an inspection report on their findings within 45 days of the end of the inspection that will be made publicly available.
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This is only the tip of the iceberg called Nuclear Power.
As opposed to "Planned radiation exposures"?
Yes. Every job in a nuclear plant that has the potential for ANY exposure has a work plan which includes the expected doses to perform the work. Any exposure that exceeds that planned dosage is called an "unplanned exposure". As the article mentioned, at this stage it is believed that dose limits were not exceeded. The investigation will determine if that is true or not.
Hey Eric,
Yes. All radiological workers are exposed to radiation at nuclear facilities. It's What WE do. It's the unplanned part that was the problem. Educate yourself.
Yes Rich, and Karen Silkwood would agree with you. Here is a lesson from American history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPP6IIeoeKo
Over to Japan: we hear in today's headlines, concern as to why the reports on the actual amounts of radiation released at Fukushima took so long and that Fukushima is now rated as a level 7 disaster due to 1) the amounts of radiation released in the first few days from the hydrogen explosions and release of gasses to reduce pressure inside the reactors. 2) due to the long term build up of continued leaking of radiation that is still not contained and according to the news, will possibly take up to ten years to stop completely.
Mar 17, 2011 Reuters:
Reports on Thursday indicated that at times radiation was intense enough to exceed even Japan's newly raised annual limit in as little as an hour.
The new limit — 250 millisieverts — is five times the allowable exposure in U.S. nuclear plants and 125 times what workers typically receive each year.
That level of exposure raises the chances that workers will eventually die of cancer by 1 percentage point, according to John Boice, a cancer epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University and radiation safety expert.
Considering the scope of the disaster — and the fact that at least 20% of people already die of cancer — many workers may be willing to accept the danger. The situation becomes more complicated at higher doses, because radiation risk is cumulative. In other words, the risk of dying of cancer rises an extra percentage point with each additional 250 millisieverts.
It is not clear for how long the government will abide by its new limit.
There were conflicting reports about the amount of radiation the workers may have received so far. It also was not clear if the releases were planned and whether the workers were sheltered at the time.
At one point on Thursday, a level of 400 millisieverts per hour was recorded at the plant. That reading was an instantaneous measurement, and it was not clear how long that emission rate was sustained. But at that rate, a fully exposed worker would have to leave in 37 minutes, 30 seconds and not come back for a year to avoid exceeding the limit.
The Japanese government has tried to protect workers by keeping as few people on-site as possible, monitoring how much radiation they receive and limiting helicopter missions to drop water on the plant. Special clothing and respirators provide some protection from the damaging emissions.
"The main danger is gamma radiation," said Elmer Lewis, a nuclear plant safety expert at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "Gamma can penetrate your body no matter what you're wearing out there. It's like a high-powered X-ray."
The plant workers are trained to react to crisis through simulated disasters, Lewis said.
But, he said, "there's really no way to anticipate what we're seeing here. They're professionals who are doing the best with what they have."
The most acute danger would come from a sudden release of radiation from which workers could not escape — an explosion, for example. That could cause radiation sickness, a devastating illness that is often fatal.
In the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, the worst nuclear plant accident in history, workers who battled a weeklong fire were exposed to radiation at levels thousands of times higher than the Japanese yearly limit.
At first, people exposed to that much radiation might look normal. In a week, things change drastically.
"People's hair starts to fall out and the burns appear and the bone marrow damage starts," said Dr. Robert Peter Gale, a hematologist who flew to Moscow days after the accident to try to save workers airlifted there. He is scheduled to fly to Japan on Saturday to help with the Fukushima relief efforts.
From this article the employees didn't follow procedures. Maybe they just wanted to be in the news. I don't see why this is even news. According to the article the exposure didn't exceed limits...
...could the print announcing this story get any tinier???....apparently trying to bury this story...
I was thinking the opposite...how the heck did this get national attention? Now, if were an article about the statistics of how many procedures weren't followed at plants, that would make sense. But one little article about one tiny little plant? Seems weird. If it would have happened 2 months ago, it wouldn't have made it to the national arena.
Two months ago it wouldn't have made it to the national arena? But it should have.
It was nice of them to point out that GE owns a chunk of MSNBC. These plants are old and tired. The employees are at risk, as the entire nation is. I feel that some things should not be for profit--the nuclear industry is one.
For your information, the plant this article is about is a nonprofit. It is a political subdivision of the state of Nebraska, a public power state. Maybe you should do a little research before promoting biased propaganda.
So tell me, was Three Mile Island a profit or non profit operation, and who was in charge when the partial meltdown occured? From this it looks like there was a lot of confusion and too many chefs in that kitchen, and it seems that profit or non profit is just so much paperwork for running operations that do take in donations or other kinds of moneys...in order to operate. Here is a rundown on how the accident at Three Mile Island was handled and the implications in the decision making when it came to the safety of the local residents and whether to evacuate or not, actual levels of exposure, etc.. Remember, the issue here is the concern over safety and health effects of radiation exposure. Enjoy some more American History, watch the experts of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Governor Thornburg of Pennsylvania, and President Carter among others in the documentary, "Meltdown at Three Mile Island". Note the concluding sentence of the documentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPAigMuBk0&feature=related
Sounds like safety procedures worked the way that they were supposed to. As long as procedures were followed after the incident, and the necessary corrective actions take place, no problem. It is good that the public is notified when issues like this occur, so that we can see that every one is being as open and upfront as possible.
Agreed. There was no problem other than human error. They didn't do what they were supposed to. That can get you killed in a lot of jobs, not just nuclear power. If done right, nuclear power is safe and efficent. When you cut corners you get this. At least everyone had the sense to follow the procedure when the alarms went off.
The only problem is with Nuclear Power, when you cut corners you can get things a lot worse than this...things that can effect people for miles and last decades.
And you will have problems: Murphy's Law. Humans are notorious for making mistakes, growing sloppy and becoming greedy. That's to say nothing of the devastating effects Mother Nature can cause.
If it was caused by human error, the humans are improperly trained or incompetent. If it's the latter, get rid of them. If it's a training issue, that's a far more serious problem. I'm unwilling to accept nuclear power as a viable alternative when it's in the hands of corporations for profit. Corners are cut and lives are at risk daily.
You are so far off base that there really isn't any point in responding. However, people should realize that human error happens everywhere. No human is perfect, hence human error is a real problem and one that can only be minimized to as little as possible.
The fact is, the amount of total radiation these workers were exposed to from this event was less than 1/1000th of their annual limit. The concern for this exposure was the dose rate they were exposed to. A rate they were exposed to very briefly cause they did exactly what they were trained to do: Stop, leave the area, and report the incident.
The problem here is the media twist. While fact, the term "unplanned radiation exposures" is very vague and serves no purpose other than to rattle readers for headlines.
Notice they never give you the amount of exposure. Or compare it to anything you are exposed to not being a radworker. Maybe they should compare it to the amount of dose you get from body scanners at airports or x-rays at the dentist. And this exposure was less than you get from the sun in a normal week or a couple trips through the airport/dentist.
And for the record, japan held up pretty well to a magnitude 9 earthquake, resulting tsunami, and complete loss of all power/safety systems. They didnt even break exposure limits at their controlled boundary. That's something the media hasn't told you either. Not enough hype for headlines.
lehaoz
You are wrong. So far off base - firstly, people have suffered from leukemia and other cancers from exposure to doses of radioactivity at Three Mile Island incident since it happened. The People's reports have not been recognized, several cases have gone to court over the years. Here is a site with factual records about it; Three Mile Island Alert. http://www.tmia.com/node/118
Secondly, Japan has just been recategorized as a level 7 nuclear disaster and more news about long term leaking of radioactivity is still forthcoming as it is still leaking as we speak since March 11th which means build up. I know that Japan held up, and many people have been evacuated from the area, and they have expanded the area, but Fukushima did not hold up very well at all. Yes there was a tsunami, but Chernobyl did not need any tsunami, it only needed what Three Mile Island had, mismanagement and human error. Chernobyl happened. Watch it here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSRC1_OZPIg&feature=related
The horrific results are available in many documentaries recorded on youtube or elsewhere since April 1986, an entire region has been abandoned, and many have died. No more Chernobyl's and no more lethal doses of radiation is any good for, needed, or wanted by people or animals, or plants or children who wish to live a healthy life in a clean air, land and water environment on Planet Earth in the future and that is a fact.
Youtube and biased propaganda based sites are not recognized as facts. Sorry, you will have to do better. Japan was reclassified based on a worst-case scenario POTENTIAL release.
Comparing things to Chernobyl is absolutely ridiculous anyway. These plants are not built like Chernobyl. I will go on to explain the concept of the temperature coefficient of reactivity for you, but you really aren't here for knowledge. You're just here to spew out bias.
Chernobyl's moderator increased reactivity as its temperature increased. Which led to eventual meltdown. Fuel gets hot, moderator gets hot adding more reactivity, fuel gets hotter, cycle repeats, eventual meltdown.
Water-moderated reactors function in the exact opposite manner. Making meltdowns not impossible, but extremely improbable as long as there is any water at all. Even if the water is boiling off, so long as the core remains mostly covered, fuel damage will not release enough radiation beyond station boundaries to even come close to limits. Or even come close to what you get from the doctors office x-rays or the airport scanners.
The only thing worse than public ignorance, is regulation based on public ignorance.
"Youtube and biased propaganda based sites are not recognized as facts. Sorry, you will have to do better. Japan was reclassified based on a worst-case scenario POTENTIAL release."
Oh my, what have we here? Looks like there is some fresh evidence that contradicts your comparason to doctors office x-rays and airport scanners. Seems there are new signs of fuel rod damage at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. There seems to be photographic evidence the cooling pool which contained 800+ spent fuel rods in the MOX (plutonium mixed fuel) Reactor #3 is completely GONE. Allegedly totally blown-up by the horrific hydrogen gas explosion which ripped thru that structure and sent a white colored contamination a full 1 mile straight up composed of spent fuel rod parts shattered by the blast.
Broken fuel rods in cooling pool #4 is serious and could lead to releasing yet MORE radiation however it is possible Reactor 2 has totally melted down and is now running a critical mass fission reaction in the mass of destroyed fuel rods, which would be yet another serious problem.
I will let the health effects and the story of Chernobyl present its own facts. It is what it is, and that is not "Youtube biased propaganda".
No need to spend the $ for the NRC to reinvent the wheel at the plant. Fire the competent person who made the wrong decision, have the plant rewrite the procedure to have a compliance control in place so it doesnt happen again. Case solved.
Fire all the competent people. That should solve all our problems.
I know from working in other industries the real meaning of "corrective actions": it means closing the barn door after the horses have already escaped. Also, the exposures "are not in excess of NRC limits?" When are they EVER? The fact is, they have never yet admitted to anything "in excess" - and they probably never will, regardless of the facts (or common sense.)
"The NRC said it did not believe the exposure exceeded its limits."
Thanks EPA for upping the amounts of radiation we are 'allowed' to absorb after the Japanese catastrophe:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/government-responds-to-nuclear-accident.html
From above article
Pleas post the source of this information, I would like to read it.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/government-responds-to-nuclear-accident.html
there are a bunch of links on that page
Excuse me, but where where the supervisors? These are the people running these nuclear facilities? I believe they all need to be shut down permanently!
"shut down permanently"
Classically childlike reaction.
@Drewmeister
Really? About children's reactions...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&NR=1
Yes Eric. "Planned Exposure" I work for a nuclear plant that just finished a very successful outage. We planned for a certain amount of radiation exposure and we can in under the estimate. It was one of the success criteria that we were striving for. Just so you don't think it is another coverup, the radiation dose received by every person is tracked for that person's entire life. Not that it means anything to you but after more than 30 years in the industry, my "planned exposure is about 1000 times LESS than what I am allowed.
I also worked in the nukes and they know how much exposure you get, They lie when they add a question to it like we do not believe. I also was present at several accidents where individuals were exposed, one to contaminated iodine,it NEVER made the news.
Too funny!
This never would have made the news had the situation at the Japanese nuclear plant hadn't occurred.
I support Nuclear Power Plants. I believe they hold great potential to great solutions.
I just wish we would follow France's example in implementing the Nuclear Power Plan. I am greatly encouraged by their success.
France will have a mishap one of these days then we'll see how encouraged you are.
No matter what, you can't take out the human factor; or nature. What can go wrong, will go wrong.
Here comes another Japan disaster but this time in America. If our leaders don't see the writting on the wall their crazier than I thought. It takes one small slip up to expose people to radiation and a possible nuclear disaster. By the way I have cancer and started radiation treatments today, I would not recommend radiation poisoning to anyone. You support nuclear power Steve S move your family next door then!!!
Why would any want to work in nuclear power plant in this country since you have no health care protection and will be thrown out to the wolves once you get sick.
Ever hear of workmans comp?
Ever had to deal with workman's comp?
It's a nightmare. Deny, deny, deny.
Every time I see one of those "workmans comp cheat" shows I want to throw a brick at the tv. Let's have a realistic show, you know, where you get denied, over and over again, until the needed surgery gets put off so long you end up in a wheelchair. Where the only prescriptions you can get are anti inflammatories that DESTROY your kidneys. And the don't tell you that and they deny, deny, deny any kind of blood test or MRI.
Where the heck do people like you get such information? My health insurance is excelent.
I have worked at Cooper nuclear as a Radiation Protection Technician on several occasions. My son works there now in the same position. I have worked at many other nuclear facilities all over this country. I noticed that the only coherent comment was made by someone else who has direct nuclear experience. I suggest that the rest of the knee jerk commentors gain at least a vague notion of the subject matter before before ranting on a subject of which you obviously have no knowledge.
Being unfamiliar with the operation of nuclear plants I do have one question. Well, actually two questions. What is the tube they are referring to? Second, why the difference between taking the tube out from the bottom of the reactor and taking it out from the top? Did it become irradiated because it was taken out the wrong way?
That is a big part of the problem with these kind of articles. They seem to assume we are too stupid to understand the facts so they don't do enough explaining. Either that or they are deliberately "dumbed" down to sell the fear factor.
I worked for 5 years in a microchip fab and from what I've heard, I'd probably have been safer working in a nuclear plant. The amount of highly dangerous chemicals used in the semiconductor industry is unreal. All sorts of acids and many of the gases used are highly toxic. Hydrochloric acid and arsenic gas are just two that come to mind. I still have some t-shirts that I wore under the "bunny" suit and a acid apron that have holes eaten in them from sulphuric acid.
Don't forget to mention cyanide. That's probably scarier to the novice.
Taking it out of the top means it wouldve been surrounded by water, which acts as a shield to radiation, like the lead vest they put on you for x-rays. Taking it out of the bottom means it was removed into an open space with no shielding to the worker, but still within primary and secondary containment boundaries meaning there was never any danger possible to the public.
According to the article , the workers removed the tube the wrong way from the bottom instead of the top why ? Or is the article wrong ? Someone screwed up big time ! Or was the article planted to get the public to shut down all nuke plants country wide ?
Some people can't tell up from down.
I have said it before and I will repeat myself... NO NUKES.... NO NUKES....NO NUKES !!!!! This could save your life. Thank you.
So Hanna, Where do you propose we get energy from?
energy bars are a good source
Natural gas, wind, solar, hydro power... don't you stay informed?
Because wind never stops blowing, the sun is always out, and farmland irrigation/droughts don't effect the reliability of hydro plants.
Also, the infrastructure for collecting and distributing natural gas has no harmful effect to the environment or people at all.
Right? (Both of the above statements were pure sarcasm in case you didn't pick up on that.)
Furthermore wind turbines are becoming even more unreliable than previously estimated due to the increased maintenance needs that were not expected when the wind hype began.
Don't you stay informed?
"I suggest that the rest of the knee jerk commentors gain at least a vague notion of the subject matter before before ranting on a subject of which you obviously have no knowledge."
@TMP et al. May I suggest that you begin here: A very good documentary called The Battle of Chernobyl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vMTdSAm1w&feature=related
That recent Thomas Johnson documentary is very well made and worth watching, but I doubt TMP (or anyone else in the nuclear profession) isn't already aware of the Chernobyl accident in greater technical detail.
I work in the nuclear engineering discipline, and I don't observe ANY usefully-specific parallels between this event at Cooper NPP (such as we know it) and Chernobyl. I suspect your thrust is just fearmongering from a weakly-informed position.
Yes Carl, this topic is very interesting and there is much to learn about many aspects of radioactivity from the technical to health related. There are many informative documentaries and this one was good with many experts, like Gorbachev and Hans Blix, and many others who were directly involved in both the running of and the clean up of Chernobyl. The beautiful city Pripyat had an approximate population of 50,000 and was full of nuclear engineers, plant workers, and many other professionals. It is still too radioactive to live in today. Many lives have been affected and it is appalling to see what misery the people have had to suffer in this area since as well as their children because of the long term effects of radioactivity in connection with genetic mutation and cancer, especially thyroid cancers in this population.
My thrust? well, words like "no knowledge" and "ill informed" are subjective judgements and complaints that simply create a change in focus and are completely irrelevant so let us get back to the topic. If your concern is a lack of knowledge by many, perhaps it would be nice for citizens to inform themselves, but in this case it would not be on a myriad of minute details of engineering as much as on radiation and health issues, and Chernobyl is the best example. The article was on radiation exposure, was it not? I do not think nuclear engineering has much to do with human safety and health after exposure to radioactivity or the amounts of radioactivity that are safe and time of exposure which was explained so well in the documentary above. Quite frankly, my thrust and your endless equations would do absolutely nothing to help in that control room after midnight on April 26th 1986 and we are just being armchair analysts here. The sh*8 happened, the proof is in the melted mess inside the decaying sarcophagus over exploded reactor #4 which is still very dangerous today requiring a new cover soon ..and in the horribly disrupted lives of the people who have had to live with and pay for this real life tragedy ...and that has nothing to do with fearmongering and everything to do with facts. It is also a fact that radiation sickness kills.
Also, in this case it did not take a tsunami, just human error. Fukushima has just been rated a 7 which is equivalent to Chernobyl tonight. This is not good news, and not a good time to be sweeping the glowing dust under the rug or drawing a dark shadow of ignorance, or delivering a sales pitch in an authoritarian tone. Try convincing the people who do have real first hand knowledge of what it is like to be evacuated from a "zone". It is not very convincing in the aftermath of hearing someone talking about that metallic taste and their teeth feeling numb, or the menacing sound of a geigercounter ticking in the background. But then, just let the people of Pripyat themselves tell you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvy4VZ8AI-s&feature=related
Ok whiners, yes it was a mishap ALL industries have mishaps and accidents all of them do. I can't believe what a bunch of hypocrites you all are. Where are you in a cave banging two rocks together? Nuclear power is just as safe as any power, Hydroelectric dams collapse, There is a risk in everything we do. Don't you all drive a car or at least a tricycle? We should have about three times as many nuclear power plants as we do and if you whiners would all just shut-up(carbon dioxide is a "green house" gass after all) we could get started on building as many of them as possible.
I live not far from Fukushima and I tend to disagree. Onagaishimasu.
I've worked on nukes also. I don't understand how they could blow it. Weren't they paying attention in the pre-job briefs? One thing that concerns me is shut downs are getting shorter and shorter leaving more packages undone. I agree though most of these people have no clue.
The US Navy has used nuclear power since the1950s, maybe they just know more what they are doing than civilian plant operators. Is ther any "SAFE" powere source? Maybe we should just abandon electricity, natural gas, etc. all to gether. When I was growing up, I we never had electricity until I was 11 years old, got by just fine. Kerosine lamps, go to bed early to save on kerosine. Used wood stoves for heat and cooking, used a spring house to keep foods cool. Look how many years the world survived without electricity.
What!? Workers were exposed to radiation at Nuclear Plants!? No way! "
Planned exposures happen everyday that I log into the RCA: "Radiological Controlled Area".
We have over 1800 extra workers right now during our refueling outage. Some have run their electronic dosimeter through the X-ray machine which causes (in alot of cases) a dose rate alarm. I'm suprised MSNBC and Fox don't have these "nuclear mistakes" on their webpages.
QUIT reporting things that don't need to be reported - If we are headed towards a meltdown or somebody was exposed bad enough that they were burned or is in isolation due to radiation, then that is newsworthy. All you news-people do is stir up people over things that don't even need to be mentioned. You are starting to be more like a tabloid than a newsroom.....