Nuclear diving

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is really interesting.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-03/swimming-hot-side?page=all

The following afternoon was another blow day on the lake, so Richter finally agreed to take me to the hot side. After being guided through an even lengthier than usual process of security briefings and screenings, I was at last given a dosimeter. We walked through a thick door and into the "radiologically controlled area" of the plant. I'd been advised not to bring my camera—it could become contaminated—and that idea alone had me checking my dosimeter from the moment we entered. There was no change, but the air felt different, heavier. I mentioned this, calmly, to Richter. She said it was my imagination.

I was still radiation-free when we reached the giant auxiliary building that housed the spent fuel pool. I walked up as close as I dared and gazed down at the storage racks far below. They emitted an unsettling blue glow. A dozen people went carefully about their tasks; this wasn't a place where mistakes could be made. We walked over to the 44-foot-deep transfer canal, where technicians moved highly radiated spent fuel from the reactors to the pool by way of a remotely controlled underwater cart. Divers were occasionally lowered into the canal, Richter said, to repair the cart or the cables it moves along. I gazed into the foreboding chasm. It looked like the last place on Earth.

Back in her office, I asked Richter again about living with the threat of radiation. Again, she brushed the question aside. The topic was so all-encompassing as to be unexplainable. Ask a diver, and they'll say contaminated-water work is the safest kind of diving they do. Try fixing a giant intake valve in zero visibility or penetration diving underneath a condenser. What divers don't say (at least on the record) is that they think about radiation all the time. They keep track of their dose levels the way most people watch their weight. And just as people are hard-pressed to say no to food, divers find it difficult to turn down a job, no matter how dangerous.

Nuclear plants are regulated by at least five different government agencies, but their own rules regarding acceptable dosage levels are always the most stringent. Each plant employs ALARA technicians (the acronym stands for "As Low As Reasonably Achievable") to plan and monitor all activity on the hot side. Radioactivity as it relates to humans is measured in millirems of exposure. Most nuclear plants set their maximum allowable dose level at 2,000 mrem (per person, per year), although the federal government allows up to 5,000 mrem of exposure per year. (By comparison, a standard chest x-ray is about 10 mrem, and a year of exposure to environmental radiation from the soil and cosmic rays is 300 mrem.) But those numbers can be tricky. Occasionally, if a diver approaches the plant's maximum dose level before finishing a dive, he or she can be granted an extension, allowing the level to be raised. "Our plant management—our radiation protection and senior managers—will get together and discuss the merits of a person going over," says Ray Vannoy, a senior Cook ALARA technician. "Sometimes they can bring in another diver so they can split the dose rather than give it all to one person." Ultimately, of course, the diver in the water must approve the extension. They almost always do.

[Doktor Howl]

RICHTER?

I thought I sensed his handiwork in this.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

She shenanigans he gets up to when nobody's keeping an eye on him... 

[Richter]

Apparently I'm a ruggedly fetching brunette woman when your backs are turned too.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Apparently I'm a ruggedly fetching brunette woman when your backs are turned too.

You are so multifaceted!

[Richter]

The statute of limitations has passed, so I think I can own up to this.  Dok and I worked together at one of these plants, but there was, well, professional tension.

I was jsut out of college, so I didn't know any better.  So I dropped a couple bag of ground coffee into the reactor pool.  Figured with a strong enough brew I'd never have to surface, sort of like the navigators in "Dune".

TO get back at me he emptied the detritus of a myiasis ward into my wet suit before I got in one morning. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The statute of limitations has passed, so I think I can own up to this.  Dok and I worked together at one of these plants, but there was, well, professional tension.

I was jsut out of college, so I didn't know any better.  So I dropped a couple bag of ground coffee into the reactor pool.  Figured with a strong enough brew I'd never have to surface, sort of like the navigators in "Dune".

TO get back at me he emptied the detritus of a myiasis ward into my wet suit before I got in one morning.

You people are sick.