246 Chernobyl
Some unnamed nuclear engineer friends of mine were consulted for this comic. They’re favorite myths regarding NASA RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generator):
1. “If the rocket explodes or has a problem during launch, it will explode like a mushroom cloud.”
2. “The rocket is powered by plutonium, it will shoot radiation out the back as it launches.”
When it comes to general nuclear power misconceptions, here is a pretty good list of misconceptions.
As for radiation, my friends generally get more exposure from medical and dental x-rays each year than they do at work. They’ve measured. OSHA regulations concerning workers’ exposure can be found here.
They also sometimes see protesters carrying Geiger-counters, pointing them at [CLASSIFIED], and getting angry. (One example of this in San Diego)
In most cases like this, the user has failed to determine the corrected counts per minute (CCPM) by subtracting the normal background radiation of the environment. So even though their device is making scary noises, they’re not getting any meaningful data.
I'm worried about your project at work. It sounds dangerous.
KATE
Don've be silly, nuclear power is very safe.
ROB
What about Chernobyl?
KATE
The 'RTG' is the size of a hockey puck and it can't possibly blow up.
ROB
But aren't you worried about radiation?
KATE
If I come home with three boobs, you can't see any of them!
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And never, ever take a Geiger-counter on a plane! Without the atmosphere in the way it is a fun way to alarm passengers. That an taking a partially inflated balloon. Both those things freak passengers out.
But I particularly like the implied “You have a baby!” argument.
Other good things NOT to take on planes – sealed bags of chips. When purchased at sea level, they tend to violently decompress just below cruising altitude, and the sound of an exploding bag of chips is not generally reacted to well on a flight.
So glad you guys are hitting nuclear. That’s one of those _really_ annoying technophobias that doesn’t get addressed by the skeptical podcasticomicverse near often enough – and sometimes, when it does, the _skeptic_ gets it just as wrong as the general population. Glad that wasn’t one of those times ^_^.
IDK my logic may be somewhat faulty but personally speaking the radiation of nuclear fuel is present in the earth already. By making smaller atoms out of it through fission, though the isotopes may have a temporarily high decay rate, what they become very quickly is essentially harmless so the net radiation is less. I’m not arguing that within the reactor itself high doses of radiation do exist but are also well contained.
Many of the explosions at Fukushima can only have been the the recombination of hydrogen and oxygen in a highly volatile mix as a result of very high temperatures hydrolyzing water. At low altitudes The background radiation from the sun is still probably higher than from a nuclear power plant. To produce false readings somebody’s watch with a phosphorescent dial including radium would be sufficient when held close enough or any number of other medical devices using materials produced in just such a reactor.
I find it helps to measure radiation in something other than Curies, when discussing it.
For example, radiation can be measured in bananas, where 1 banana is the amount of radiation emitted per second from an average banana. They do actually emit radiation, because some of their potassium is radioactive “hoorayz for isotope variation!”.
You can really calm someone down by saying “oh please, that machine only emits 50 bananas of radiation.”
BEST IDEA EVER.
Feel free to use it.
That is an actual unit, by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
Not a formal one, but it is there.
The trick is relating radioactivity (example units in Curies) to a biological dose (ex. unit Sievert or rem), which can vary depending on the type of ionizing radiation you’re talking about (alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, etc). Gets even trickier when you add distance to the equation.
But I like that approach, and in that spirit, have an amusing, yet thought-provoking chart (http://xkcd.com/radiation/)!
These fear against nuclear energy for rocket development is why we have to waste so much money on less effective chemical rockets. While I am not going to advocate for something like project Orion, I still think a NERVA engine could have been so useful for our space sciences.
Also, I wonder why people are so afraid of those RTG – the reaction is nothing like a nuclear power plant, it is right there in the name: “thermoelectric”. The thing generate electricity from heat, not fusion or fission. There won’t be any boom.
I know two little words that will have him perfectly okay with that. She-Hulk.
That’s hot.
Watch out for them radiations, they’ll give you the cancers.
My house is plastered with central heating radiations and I’ve found it quite easy to get used to the extra head.
It always cracks me up when people bring up Chernobyl as an example of how unsafe nuclear power supposedly is. Because, sure, nuclear plants haven’t made any advances past 1980’s Soviet technology.
Well, Chernobyl shouldn’t even have happened with 1980’s Soviet technology. The accident was cased by inadequate training, not a failure of technology. Even more ironic, part of the reason they missed it until it was too late was because they where running drills at the time.
Three Mile Island (even though the failsafes worked exactly as they were designed) and the China Syndrome (a sensationalist film that’s ‘meh’ at best but was blessed with good timing coming out right at the time of the aforementioned Three Mile Island incident) didn’t help either. Even though new Generation IV and V reactors can ossify their own waste and are even more efficient than the dinosaur about an hour from my house at San Onofre. But nope, no new nuclear reactors
@The Other Mike: “nuclear plants haven’t made any advances past 1980’s Soviet technology.” Thanks for the heads up, T’other Mike, I’ve always been suspicious of nuclear technology. I’ve even installed a Geiger counter on my electricity meter just in case any of that nuclear radiation escapes down the power lines.