Oops! Scottish Beach Closed After Discovery Of Fuel Rod Chips - Telegraph

[hatrack]

A beach near Dounreay power station has become Britain's first officially acknowledged radioactive public landscape after pieces of plutonium fuel rods were found there. Signs warning visitors of the radiation dangers have been posted on the beach, and last month a potentially carcinogenic 4mm fragment of fuel rod was found — the latest in a series of discoveries involving radioactive material.

These are thought to have come from accidental discharges from Dounreay over a 30-year period. The beach, part of the Sandside estate in Reay, north-east Scotland, used to be a popular destination for locals and visitors. But the area is now considered such a risk that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency is advising people not to take children on the sands.

"It used to teem with life — people came here from all over," said Geoffrey Minter, 62, who bought the estate in 1990. "Now you hardly see anyone. When I came here, I thought I'd realised a dream. "There's a beautiful golf course looking out over the bay, and some excellent wild salmon fishing. Nobody knew about contamination then."

One day in 1997, Mr Minter was informed that the beach had been fenced off after routine monitoring by Dounreay's inspectors uncovered a radioactive particle. Managers from the plant assured him that the event was a one-off. But since then, 66 more particles have been found.

EDIT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/04/nbeach04.xml

[bananas]

1. They also lost 375lb of weapons-grade uranium?

Last month, the plant was fined £2 million over a radioactive spillage last year, and the past decade has seen a series of well-documented safety failures at Dounreay.

These include the loss of 375lb (170kg) of weapons-grade uranium, enough to make several bombs, as well as serious contamination of employees.

[NOLADEM]

2. Jebus

Losing 300 + pounds of weapons grade material is inexcusable. I suspect when things like this go 'missing', something more sinister is at work.

I hope I am wrong, but how would you lose it?

Was it thrown out with lunch wrappers?

Did someone accidentally flush it?

That is a LOT of fissile material to just go missing.

Nice to know they are discharging nuclear particulates into the sea.

Nuclear power is such a horrid, horrid beast.

I wish the genie was never let out of the bottle.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[NOLADEM]

5. Good post...thanks for the insight

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[peacebird]

3. help? Just HOW do these pieces get out of the system?

the cooling water is on a separate system from the area where the rods are, isn't it? How are they losing these bits?

[jpak]

8. Somebody swept something under the rug...on the QT...in secret...

...and isn't telling anyone...

[NNadir]

6. Technical point.

The article says:

Mr Minter said: "Some of the plutonium particles lying on the sea bed have a half-life of 300 years. I want to ensure that future generations can enjoy the beach in safety and that they won't look back at us and ask why we did nothing while this beautiful landscape was being polluted."

The number of plutonium isotopes that have a half-life of 300 years is zero.

The physics of every plutonium isotope is available on line:

http://atom.kaeri.re.kr/ton/nuc11.html

This is from the Table of Nuclides, with which anyone interesting in nuclear engineering must be familiar.

Here is a typical entry, this for plutonium-240:

94-Pu-240
basic
n-XS summary
XS graphs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
element 94-plutonium-240

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Atomic Mass: 240.0538075 +- 0.0000021 amu
Excess Mass: 50121.319 +- 1.947 keV
Binding Energy: 1813454.935 +- 1.974 keV
Beta Decay Energy: B- -1378.952 +- 13.790 keV
"The 1995 update to the atomic mass evaluation" by G.Audi and A.H.Wapstra, Nuclear Physics A595 vol. 4 p.409-480, December 25, 1995.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spin: 0+
Half life: 6564 years
Mode of decay: Alpha to U-236
Decay energy: 5.256 MeV
Mode of decay: SF
Branch ratio: 5.7E-6 %

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meta state at 2.800 Mev
Spin: (0+)
Half life: 3.7 ns
Mode of decay: SF
Branch ratio: >0.00 %


Possible parent nuclides:
Beta from Np-240
Electron capture from Am-240
Alpha from Cm-244
R.R.Kinsey, et al.,The NUDAT/PCNUDAT Program for Nuclear Data,paper submitted to the 9 th International Symposium of Capture-Gamma_raySpectroscopy and Related Topics, Budapest, Hungary, Octover 1996.Data extracted from NUDAT database (Jan. 14/1999)

The more you know, the better you can engage in critical thinking.

[peacebird]

9. sheesh - half life of 300 years vs a Half life of 6,564 years?

:wtf:
I was already thinking the officials statement "I want to ensure that future generations can enjoy the beach in safety" was absurd with the 300 year timeframe - but 6,564 years? That's not even in the same freaking ballpark.... Mr Minter - rest assured - it will be WELL into the future before ANY generation can enjoy THAT beach again. :eyes:

That's assuming humans still exist in 6,500 years and England isn't just a submerged hazard for sailors that is.

[NNadir]

10. Well, if that scares you, uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion

years.

I'll bet that it will never be safe on that beach.

In fact, the ocean contains more than 3 billion metric tons of this deadly toxic isotope. I would avoid swimming in any case.

[jpak]

11. Why should anyone worry about this cheesy parlor trick???

The concentration of 238U in seawater is extremely low - 3.3 micro-grams per liter.

Given its "4.468" billion year half-life, its radioactivity is also exceeding low.

and, upon decay it emits an alpha particle, which cannot travel more than a very small fraction of a millimeter in seawater (and would never penetrate human skin).

I say come on in, the water's fine.