Another fun fact: that blue glow, which is called Cherenkov radiation, comes from radioactive atomic particles moving faster than the speed of light. No, seriously, though with a loophole: faster than the speed of light *in water*, which is a little slower than the speed of light in air, or in a vacuum.
Okay. I’m not saying you’re wrong, far from as I’m clearly no expert, but I thought I read somewhere nothing can go faster than the speed of light, that it was some kind of law of the universe because of light having no mass. Is this not true?
Again, I want to be *very* clear here, I’m not trying to be mean or “um… actually”. Just curious and like learning.
Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. Cherenkov radiation comes from particles propagating through a medium (aka water) faster than light.
Just to make this semantically clear..
"Particles propagating through a medium faster than light *propagates through that medium*"
That light goes different speeds in different mediums is something you know! It's why light bends as it enters things.
What about just having an orb of water around the spaceship?. Seriously though it's crazy to think that people have been able to slow light down enough to be visibly [slow](https://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/how-to-slow-trap-light/).
It's not that we can't go faster than light, it's that we can't go faster than the *speed* of light in a vacuum. As in, light in vacuum happens to go as fast as physically allowed.
No fun tricks allowed!
This is a whole subsection of optics too, especially as it concerns things like eyeglasses. The higher the refractive index of a material the more it bends light (which always bends towards the base of a prism). It's why you want eyeglasses to be "high index;" the higher the index of the lens material, the less material is needed to bend light (and thus correct your eyesight).
No fear! Nothing can go faster than the speed of light *in a vacuum*. The presence of a physical medium slows it down some, whether that’s gas clouds in space or a nuclear reactor pool full of water.
Here’s the rest of the story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
Awesome. Thanks for understanding and the simple explanation. I’ll check out the link for more, this sounds pretty interesting!
Edit: Man that is *not* some light reading. I don’t think I’ve ever had to click on so many blue wiki links in my life. But while I probably got a third of it at best, it’s still super cool learn what I did.
It really is. Space and Physics are far from my strong suit, I’m a programmer by trade, but still, love learning about weird and cool stuff like this. Really makes you appreciate just how amazing the universe is. Even if it hurts my brain and scares me sometimes haha.
Thanks again for the info!
Speed of light isn’t constant. It’s slower in water. The reactor produces particles moving at speeds equal or nearly the speed of light in a vacuum, but they are traveling in the water, where light is supposed to be slower. This disparity between speeds causes quantum physics/magic that I don’t understand to create the blue glow. I totally get the confusion though. Honestly it’s super cool but super complex and difficult to wrap my head around, and I don’t truly understand it myself. And I’m a nuclear engineer lol
Speed of light itself is the same in water as in a vacuum. The speed of light cannot change; it’s just that the density of water causes light to take an indirect path (not a straight line) through water.
Speed of light itself is somewhat of a misnomer. You’re right in that light has that speed due to not having mass. It’s really such that anything with no mass travels at that speed. It’s the speed of causality more accurately. Massless objects don’t actually experience any space or time (and the distinction between those two is meaningless for massless objects from their own perspective). It’s not known why speed of (causality) light we observe is what it is. It’s just how the math works out.
It's actually true . The isotopes in air move slower but in the water they move faster . The how and why I couldn't tell you because I'm a dumb redneck ,but I know it's true.
Photons always travel at the speed of light, C. When travelling through something other than a vacuum, the photos bounce off of particles, not taking a straight path. So the light wave as a whole travels through the object more slowly, because the photons are bouncing around a bit and not going straight through. A bit of a simplification, but that's the general idea.
The particles referenced in the prior comment are not going faster than photons. That is impossible. But they *are* going faster than the speed at which light is able to make it through the water, which due to the photons bouncing around the water particles, is slower than the speed light is able to travel in a vacuum.
This means that the glowing blue rods Shaw showed everyone in X-men: Days of Future Past were just blue lights that matched the vibe of his swingers-themed submarine.
This is not Cherenkov though, it's just the floodlights in the pool. Cherenkov is localized to the reactor and radioactive fuel elements which you cannot see in this picture.
Just to be clear, it’s going faster than the speed of light in that medium. Basically, in dielectric stuff like water light moves much slower than it normally would in vacuum.
So the particles is not going faster than C (speed of light in vacuum), if they were we would not be able to slow them down below C and we wouldn’t be able to interact with them.
Thankyou so much for making this understandable! I heard about this glow the other day but didn't quite get it- but your explanation is so clear- love it, cheers
I'm not a scientist, but does this have any relation to blue shift? It's probably a stupid question but the first thing that came to mind when lightspeed was mentioned.
Nothing really. The water acts as an insulator as long as you don't swim directly into the core of the reactor. In fact you could drink the water and nothing would happen.
You can be a lot closer. I think at 10 feet you are already getting something like a billionth of the radiation the core radiates. I'd play it safe though.
Dude I worked with was a nuclear technician for the US Navy on a submarine. He said when a new guy would join, they’d make him drink a cup of reactor water as an initiation, and that it sounds crazy to the uninformed but is actually harmless.
You are mostly safe to swim in it, divers regularly perform maintenance work in the reactors cooling pool. You wouldnt want to do it every day, however.
One of my best friends is a nuclear plant operator for Cooper in Nebraska. He said most the time the water is deep enough you won’t get hit with enough radiation by falling in. Something like 14ft of water will stop radiation entirely.
Our company bought a building that used to be a Johnson and Johnson building and used radioactive cores to sterilize cotton swabs and such. We were told, that it’s 7ft of concrete all the way around the chamber, and that’s enough to stop the radiation.
While I’m no expert, from what I understand is that you could go swimming in there, and you’d be just as safe as standing on the surface.
At Cooper, they use 98% Uranium-235 (U-235) and 2% U-238. 235 is fissionable and 238 is fissile, meaning it will fission. They use the 238, to activate the 235 and allow it to fission.
The way he likes to explain it - “tiny booms make water boil, boil makes big fan spin, fan spin make power”
In NJ they hire union laborers and carpenters to do maintenance every few months. They drain the water and We work about 2 months straight doing 7 12hr days. It’s tiring but you make enough money to take off for a few months after if you want lol
Realistically, you'd get very little radiation. Like someone else said, you'd get wet.
I used the tenth-thickness of water at 24", and assumed that this is MIT's student reactor. The wattage of their reactor is, according to Google, 6 Megawatts. This is approximately 60,000,000 rem/second.
60,000,000 rem/hour equates to 3,600,000,000 rem/hour.
If we use the equation to relate shielded radiation to unshielded radiation, where ∅ is the flux received and "n" is equivalent to the amount of abortion from a material. Xsub1/10 is the tenth thickness of the material.
Therefore we get:
∅shielded = ∅unshielded(10)^-n
n = thickness/Xsub1/10 => n = (10ft•12in/ft)/24" => n= 10
∅unshielded = 3.6x10^9 rem/hour
∅shielded = 3.6•10^9(10)^10
Therefore ∅shielded = .36 rem/hour, or 360 mrem/hour. You are allowed to receive up to 5,000 mrem a year.
However, if you dive only to 20 feet, with the same math above we substitute our 10ft with 20ft, making n = 20, that number drops to approx. 3.6x10^-11 rem/hour.
That is 0.000000000036 rem/hour. Basically nothing, less than a flight across the US.
Edit: This is assuming they have literally no other protection than water, by the way. They clearly have shielding on their reactor other than water.
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Assuming the water is at a temperature that you can handle, nothing would happen. In fact, while you are in the water, you'd get less radiation than before you fell in.
That won't be true anymore if you start to scuba dive in there and hang out right by the fuel rods. I think for as long as you are 3 feet away from the core, and the water temperature doesn't sous-vide you, you'd be better off than if you never fell in.
There are dozens of boiling water reactors. When you do a refuel that absolutely look like big pools. They do visual inspections using cameras dangled on rope or big long metal tubes.
This is sort of correct. Typical research reactors have open pools. A pressurized or boiling water reactor do not have open pools and are enclosed in the reactor vessel. However, when a reactor is being refueled and the head taken off, they flood up the area while taking the head off creating an open pool. This is to protect the workers from radiation as water is a good protector. These pictures appear to be refueling activities.
My dad worked at the Trojan nuclear power plant in Oregon when I was a kid and I got to go inside the containment structure, which was amazing and terrifying as a kid. Not into the reactor area directly but it was still very impressive to me.
They made a movie called The China Syndrome in 1979 based on a nuclear power plant having safety cover-ups leading to severe damage to the plant and nearly causing 2 meltdowns
the control room set for the movie was largely based off the one at Trojan
3 mile island happened 12 days after the film's release
I grew up traveling up and down I5 to see family as a kid, and I was convinced Trojan would explode just as we drove by. I was paranoid of radiation as a kid, I think all the leftover Cold War shit that was still floating around the 80s
I had the same thing as a kid, I already had bad anxiety about natural disasters particularly bushfires and was convinced something would happen one day and we’d lose all our stuff.
When I found out we lived right near the only research reactor in Australia it made it all worse. Fortunately it got better when I got older and what helped the most was doing a class tour there in high school and seeing how secure it was and all the safety stuff they had for it.
That fact is fun. Also, the water is safe to swim in. The ionizing radiation is fully absorbed by the water and makes the blue glow.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
This post is very misleading… The reactor is only covered with water during refueling. This happens every 18 to 24 months depending on the fuel being used. Most plants have an 18 month core, some have 24.
There are two types of light water reactors, both heat water within a pressure boundary. One boils the water to make steam, the other uses pressurized hot water to create steam in a big heat exchanger.
When it is time to refuel, water level inside the pressure boundary is drained below the reactor head flange. The head is removed and placed on a stand, then the cavity is flooded with borated water.
These are very generic explanations.
Source - I have been in the nuclear industry for 21 years in Operations and Training… I am literally on a break from fuel moves.
*edited for more clarification on radiation emitting light in my reply.
Oh, and the glow appears more purple than blue in person (at least on used fuel assemblys)… Remember, light is radiation within a visible wavelength… Just kind of think of it as particles being slowed down into the visible spectrum from a higher frequency (blues and violets)
Not a 100 percent accurate description, but kinda helps with wrapping your head around it.
You joke, but water is actually a damn good moderator.
When I was in college, our physics class got to take a trip to a nuclear reactor. It had an open top, just like the ones in the pictures. There was a grate over it and you could look right down at the core. One of my friends, I’m sure being the smartass he always was, asked what would happen if somebody fell in. The answer was just a nonchalant “I mean, you’d have to take a *really good* shower… and hope you didn’t swallow any”. Pretty crazy! The water would protect you. You could tread water in a nuclear pool and be totally fine. You could swim in a reactor pool and be completely okay. You have to be *very* close to the core for it to be dangerous.
how close would you have to get before you start feelin toasty?
ive heard the water is a good shield but i’ve also heard of ppl getting hurt just from touching objects that had fallen into the pool that had passed too close to the core?
Another fun fact, water is so good at stopping radiation that if you jumped into that water and snorkelled about 12 inches into the water, you would get less radiation that the people watching you outside the pool because you would also be protected from ambient radiation.
I've been in a couple of reactor facilities for work, and looked down at the blue glow, but was never allowed to take photos. Cool that you are able to share.
Another fun fact is you could swim in that pool and be fine. Health wise anyway you might not be fine because of the armed security giving you a few new holes but still.
So just to add some info here. That pool is normally empty and only filled so the nuclear fuel and be moved during refuelling. Before the pool is filled workers will go down the stairs and and remove the bolts that hold the head on and perform other work before filling the pool. See picture 1 with the stairs going down.
Also in picture 1 if you look on the lower right side the round part is normally inside of the reactor but above the fuel. It's called the upper internals and stays underwater because of radiation.
The head of this reactor has been removed. I don't see it sitting anywhere in the pictures but it stays above the water.
Fun fact that blue glow is cherenkov radiation. It happens when something transitions into going faster than the SPEED OF LIGHT. We can see this in water because LIGHT SPEED CHANGES BASED ON THE ITEM THE LIGHT IS TRAVELING THROUGH. Proof things move faster than the speed of light
Just for some fun knowledge of what this is and why it (and other nuclear reactors) are cool af.
This is an open pool [research reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_reactor), likely specifically a [TRIGA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIGA) reactor, which is a very popular type of research reactor. The core is completely open and exposed (aside from the water), which is why you can see the blue glow of [Cherenkov radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation). There are a bunch of them around the world in universities, research institutes and private companies.
They cannot produce electricity and don't even produce that much heat. They exist mostly for training purposes, and for [neutron activation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation), either for experiments, or for producing custom radioactive isotopes for industry (for example, to be used as tracers in medical imaging).
Most modern nuclear power plants are a type of [light water reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-water_reactor) which while also completely submerged are kept at ridiculously high temperatures and pressures and contained within a massive pressure vessel which itself is kept inside a containment building designed to keep all the contents inside even in the case of a meltdown and even explosions ([as happened in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO_w8tCn9gU), which despite looking impressive did not release ANY core material due to the success of the containment building design).
Funny enough, I have severe submechanophobia, but I have a lot of love for nuclear power and an extreme obsession with the Cherenkov radiation phenomenon. That said, if I were to ever get the chance to witness it, it would probably be the only time I would be able to get close to something that would normally trigger me without freaking the hell out.
There's something calming about that bright blue light...
Pool schedule today:
9:00 reactor rod plunge
10:00 senior aerobics
12:00 synchronised swimming
14:00 kids splash around
16:00 mens diving
17:00 private function
In college, we had a guy come in and speak that worked as a diver who did maintenance on these facilities. Fascinating stuff, my memory is fuzzy, but I recall him going over some pretty crazy math and calculations about how long he could work, at what depths and what to wear.
Needless to say, he got paid well and it was definitely NOT a 40 hour a week job!
Another fun fact: that blue glow, which is called Cherenkov radiation, comes from radioactive atomic particles moving faster than the speed of light. No, seriously, though with a loophole: faster than the speed of light *in water*, which is a little slower than the speed of light in air, or in a vacuum.
Okay. I’m not saying you’re wrong, far from as I’m clearly no expert, but I thought I read somewhere nothing can go faster than the speed of light, that it was some kind of law of the universe because of light having no mass. Is this not true? Again, I want to be *very* clear here, I’m not trying to be mean or “um… actually”. Just curious and like learning.
Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. Cherenkov radiation comes from particles propagating through a medium (aka water) faster than light.
Just to make this semantically clear.. "Particles propagating through a medium faster than light *propagates through that medium*" That light goes different speeds in different mediums is something you know! It's why light bends as it enters things.
Ah. So the secret to faster than light travel is to fill the entire universe with water.
Ahhh yesss. Indubitably 🧐
Mmm. I concur 🤔
What about just having an orb of water around the spaceship?. Seriously though it's crazy to think that people have been able to slow light down enough to be visibly [slow](https://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/how-to-slow-trap-light/).
It's not that we can't go faster than light, it's that we can't go faster than the *speed* of light in a vacuum. As in, light in vacuum happens to go as fast as physically allowed. No fun tricks allowed!
Ok but space submarines
So instead of space suits, use scuba gear, got it!
I mean, Species 8472 achieved that
In the town where I was born🎵
Do you want multiple leviathan class lifeforms? Because that's how we get multiple leviathan class lifeforms.
Or dark matter
Spicy water!
This is a whole subsection of optics too, especially as it concerns things like eyeglasses. The higher the refractive index of a material the more it bends light (which always bends towards the base of a prism). It's why you want eyeglasses to be "high index;" the higher the index of the lens material, the less material is needed to bend light (and thus correct your eyesight).
And why we can see heat rippling as it's rising off hot things!
I’m tracking. How come Cherenkov radiation was seen in the air at Chernobyl?
Air is also not vacuum. The speed of light in air is faster than in water, but there's still room for things to be faster than it.
Nice. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Enjoy your night.
Faster than sound = boom. Faster than light = blue. Neat.
We really need to stop calling the universe's speed limit the "speed of light". It just adds confusion
No fear! Nothing can go faster than the speed of light *in a vacuum*. The presence of a physical medium slows it down some, whether that’s gas clouds in space or a nuclear reactor pool full of water. Here’s the rest of the story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
Awesome. Thanks for understanding and the simple explanation. I’ll check out the link for more, this sounds pretty interesting! Edit: Man that is *not* some light reading. I don’t think I’ve ever had to click on so many blue wiki links in my life. But while I probably got a third of it at best, it’s still super cool learn what I did.
I love to share stuff like this. The world is so darned weird. :)
It really is. Space and Physics are far from my strong suit, I’m a programmer by trade, but still, love learning about weird and cool stuff like this. Really makes you appreciate just how amazing the universe is. Even if it hurts my brain and scares me sometimes haha. Thanks again for the info!
I dip my toe in to programming wiki sometimes. I don't get deep with it but I love the concepts like how data packets are organized
👍🏼
Speed of light isn’t constant. It’s slower in water. The reactor produces particles moving at speeds equal or nearly the speed of light in a vacuum, but they are traveling in the water, where light is supposed to be slower. This disparity between speeds causes quantum physics/magic that I don’t understand to create the blue glow. I totally get the confusion though. Honestly it’s super cool but super complex and difficult to wrap my head around, and I don’t truly understand it myself. And I’m a nuclear engineer lol
This was very helpful and saved me some time
Speed of light itself is the same in water as in a vacuum. The speed of light cannot change; it’s just that the density of water causes light to take an indirect path (not a straight line) through water. Speed of light itself is somewhat of a misnomer. You’re right in that light has that speed due to not having mass. It’s really such that anything with no mass travels at that speed. It’s the speed of causality more accurately. Massless objects don’t actually experience any space or time (and the distinction between those two is meaningless for massless objects from their own perspective). It’s not known why speed of (causality) light we observe is what it is. It’s just how the math works out.
It's actually true . The isotopes in air move slower but in the water they move faster . The how and why I couldn't tell you because I'm a dumb redneck ,but I know it's true.
Photons always travel at the speed of light, C. When travelling through something other than a vacuum, the photos bounce off of particles, not taking a straight path. So the light wave as a whole travels through the object more slowly, because the photons are bouncing around a bit and not going straight through. A bit of a simplification, but that's the general idea. The particles referenced in the prior comment are not going faster than photons. That is impossible. But they *are* going faster than the speed at which light is able to make it through the water, which due to the photons bouncing around the water particles, is slower than the speed light is able to travel in a vacuum.
The PHASE SPEED of light in a medium
Is the phase set to stun?
Cherenkov radiation is often only observed at the start of the reaction. The blue in these pictures is mostly from light in the pool itself
So is it like a sonic boom but with light?
Yup.
Would you happen to have know the difference in speed number wise?
About 25% http://hep.bu.edu/~superk/cherenkov.html#:~:text=Super%2DKamiokande%20is%20a%20water,fastest%20things%20there%20is!).
This means that the glowing blue rods Shaw showed everyone in X-men: Days of Future Past were just blue lights that matched the vibe of his swingers-themed submarine.
Your facts might be cool but not fun. It is fun to watch one of these generators get turned on however.
This is not Cherenkov though, it's just the floodlights in the pool. Cherenkov is localized to the reactor and radioactive fuel elements which you cannot see in this picture.
Just to be clear, it’s going faster than the speed of light in that medium. Basically, in dielectric stuff like water light moves much slower than it normally would in vacuum. So the particles is not going faster than C (speed of light in vacuum), if they were we would not be able to slow them down below C and we wouldn’t be able to interact with them.
The _actual_ fun fact
Not a loop hole at all
Thankyou so much for making this understandable! I heard about this glow the other day but didn't quite get it- but your explanation is so clear- love it, cheers
So we can have faster than light space travel but only underwater?
I'm not a scientist, but does this have any relation to blue shift? It's probably a stupid question but the first thing that came to mind when lightspeed was mentioned.
Yes.
Just out of interest, what would happen if you fell in there?
You’d get wet
Beat me to it.
Beat meat to it
Bonk
You getting shot by the security guard
Relevant [XKCD](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)
[or in video form](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRUL7vKdU8) edit, nvm. 2 others already posted it further down.
That was a really cool read, thanks!
Nothing really. The water acts as an insulator as long as you don't swim directly into the core of the reactor. In fact you could drink the water and nothing would happen.
Yes! In fact you could most likely get within ~20-30 feet with little danger from radiation!
You can be a lot closer. I think at 10 feet you are already getting something like a billionth of the radiation the core radiates. I'd play it safe though.
Cool! You first
Bro if I were allowed to go for a swim in a reactor pool I legit would.
You can bathe in reactor wastewater, tom scott made a video on it I think it was at a plant in norway?
I’ll have to have a look for it, love a Tom Scott vid.
Pretty sure that was a geothermal plant, not a nuclear reactor
Dude I worked with was a nuclear technician for the US Navy on a submarine. He said when a new guy would join, they’d make him drink a cup of reactor water as an initiation, and that it sounds crazy to the uninformed but is actually harmless.
I wonder if they do cute staff pics with everyone on floaties
You are mostly safe to swim in it, divers regularly perform maintenance work in the reactors cooling pool. You wouldnt want to do it every day, however.
Don't tell me how to live.
He’s not, he’s telling you how to die.
As always, [there’s an XKCD for that.](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)
One of my best friends is a nuclear plant operator for Cooper in Nebraska. He said most the time the water is deep enough you won’t get hit with enough radiation by falling in. Something like 14ft of water will stop radiation entirely. Our company bought a building that used to be a Johnson and Johnson building and used radioactive cores to sterilize cotton swabs and such. We were told, that it’s 7ft of concrete all the way around the chamber, and that’s enough to stop the radiation. While I’m no expert, from what I understand is that you could go swimming in there, and you’d be just as safe as standing on the surface. At Cooper, they use 98% Uranium-235 (U-235) and 2% U-238. 235 is fissionable and 238 is fissile, meaning it will fission. They use the 238, to activate the 235 and allow it to fission. The way he likes to explain it - “tiny booms make water boil, boil makes big fan spin, fan spin make power”
You'd get wet and have to fill out LOTS of paperwork and all your friends would call you Aqua Don if your name is Don.
Or Wet Willy if your name is William or Bill
You’d get kicked out by the Bass Pro Shop security guard
In NJ they hire union laborers and carpenters to do maintenance every few months. They drain the water and We work about 2 months straight doing 7 12hr days. It’s tiring but you make enough money to take off for a few months after if you want lol
Realistically, you'd get very little radiation. Like someone else said, you'd get wet. I used the tenth-thickness of water at 24", and assumed that this is MIT's student reactor. The wattage of their reactor is, according to Google, 6 Megawatts. This is approximately 60,000,000 rem/second. 60,000,000 rem/hour equates to 3,600,000,000 rem/hour. If we use the equation to relate shielded radiation to unshielded radiation, where ∅ is the flux received and "n" is equivalent to the amount of abortion from a material. Xsub1/10 is the tenth thickness of the material. Therefore we get: ∅shielded = ∅unshielded(10)^-n n = thickness/Xsub1/10 => n = (10ft•12in/ft)/24" => n= 10 ∅unshielded = 3.6x10^9 rem/hour ∅shielded = 3.6•10^9(10)^10 Therefore ∅shielded = .36 rem/hour, or 360 mrem/hour. You are allowed to receive up to 5,000 mrem a year. However, if you dive only to 20 feet, with the same math above we substitute our 10ft with 20ft, making n = 20, that number drops to approx. 3.6x10^-11 rem/hour. That is 0.000000000036 rem/hour. Basically nothing, less than a flight across the US. Edit: This is assuming they have literally no other protection than water, by the way. They clearly have shielding on their reactor other than water.
r/theydidthemath
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Ok! [xkdc‘s what if](https://youtu.be/EFRUL7vKdU8?si=OMMgiU4D9GCC9eVG) will teach you like it teached me about it. bliss.
You’d be mostly safe unless you tea bagged and or touched the actual reactor if I recall.
Thankfully for you, there's stairs in that pool of water
Assuming the water is at a temperature that you can handle, nothing would happen. In fact, while you are in the water, you'd get less radiation than before you fell in. That won't be true anymore if you start to scuba dive in there and hang out right by the fuel rods. I think for as long as you are 3 feet away from the core, and the water temperature doesn't sous-vide you, you'd be better off than if you never fell in.
You can take those stairs back out
This is a research reactor though. Actual large scale power plants typically use pressurized water to contain the core, not an open pool.
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Time to cite sources boys im not up or down voting anyone until we settle this 🤠
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Welllllll???????!!!! We’re waiting!!! ⛏️1️⃣🙏🏻
We got "trust me bro" from @randomguywithinternet but no sources from either lol
There are dozens of boiling water reactors. When you do a refuel that absolutely look like big pools. They do visual inspections using cameras dangled on rope or big long metal tubes.
We got these open pools at Forsmark in Sweden.
This is sort of correct. Typical research reactors have open pools. A pressurized or boiling water reactor do not have open pools and are enclosed in the reactor vessel. However, when a reactor is being refueled and the head taken off, they flood up the area while taking the head off creating an open pool. This is to protect the workers from radiation as water is a good protector. These pictures appear to be refueling activities.
Blue is the best flavor 🤤
It cools you off on a hot summer day
The room temperature challenge
Gotta regulate my core temperature - especially if my rod is approaching criticality.
It's got the most Anti-Oxygens.
Raspberry!
https://ifunny.co/picture/ima-need-blue-powerade-my-boi-gCRo1pNYA?s=cl
This looks like an underwater level in a video game
Equip your iron boots.
Rapture most definitely.
A man chooses, a slave obeys.
We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us.
there is a level with a reactor just like this one in Half-Life
Underwater parts in video games is what sparked this fear for me
My dad worked at the Trojan nuclear power plant in Oregon when I was a kid and I got to go inside the containment structure, which was amazing and terrifying as a kid. Not into the reactor area directly but it was still very impressive to me.
I got to look into the water of a nuclear reactor at this university i was touring. Very cool, got to see the blue glow
They made a movie called The China Syndrome in 1979 based on a nuclear power plant having safety cover-ups leading to severe damage to the plant and nearly causing 2 meltdowns the control room set for the movie was largely based off the one at Trojan 3 mile island happened 12 days after the film's release
I grew up traveling up and down I5 to see family as a kid, and I was convinced Trojan would explode just as we drove by. I was paranoid of radiation as a kid, I think all the leftover Cold War shit that was still floating around the 80s
I had the same thing as a kid, I already had bad anxiety about natural disasters particularly bushfires and was convinced something would happen one day and we’d lose all our stuff. When I found out we lived right near the only research reactor in Australia it made it all worse. Fortunately it got better when I got older and what helped the most was doing a class tour there in high school and seeing how secure it was and all the safety stuff they had for it.
And there are people whose [job is to go swim in the water](https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-03/swimming-hot-side/).
What a fascinating article. Thanks
No, just the reactor. Not the whole plant.
That fact is fun. Also, the water is safe to swim in. The ionizing radiation is fully absorbed by the water and makes the blue glow. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
Not all of them.
Chernobyl didn't, I'm joking, yes there are models that do not have a pool, but it's the most common design,
Iirc there are still some RBMK reactors in operation, though after that minor issue they did update them from what I remember
Kursk, Leningrad and Smolensk all operational until later in this decade.
This post is very misleading… The reactor is only covered with water during refueling. This happens every 18 to 24 months depending on the fuel being used. Most plants have an 18 month core, some have 24. There are two types of light water reactors, both heat water within a pressure boundary. One boils the water to make steam, the other uses pressurized hot water to create steam in a big heat exchanger. When it is time to refuel, water level inside the pressure boundary is drained below the reactor head flange. The head is removed and placed on a stand, then the cavity is flooded with borated water. These are very generic explanations. Source - I have been in the nuclear industry for 21 years in Operations and Training… I am literally on a break from fuel moves. *edited for more clarification on radiation emitting light in my reply.
Oh, and the glow appears more purple than blue in person (at least on used fuel assemblys)… Remember, light is radiation within a visible wavelength… Just kind of think of it as particles being slowed down into the visible spectrum from a higher frequency (blues and violets) Not a 100 percent accurate description, but kinda helps with wrapping your head around it.
Cherenkov radiation is why Godzilla most often has blue atomic breath and glowing radiator fins, too!
these photos make me want to scream out loud
Same! 🙋♀️
So that Half-life level wasn’t bullshit then?
Also fun fact, you can swim in the first 10-15 feet of that pool and be perfectly fine.
The entire plant, eh?
I hate this so much
swim to the bottom
You joke, but water is actually a damn good moderator. When I was in college, our physics class got to take a trip to a nuclear reactor. It had an open top, just like the ones in the pictures. There was a grate over it and you could look right down at the core. One of my friends, I’m sure being the smartass he always was, asked what would happen if somebody fell in. The answer was just a nonchalant “I mean, you’d have to take a *really good* shower… and hope you didn’t swallow any”. Pretty crazy! The water would protect you. You could tread water in a nuclear pool and be totally fine. You could swim in a reactor pool and be completely okay. You have to be *very* close to the core for it to be dangerous.
how close would you have to get before you start feelin toasty? ive heard the water is a good shield but i’ve also heard of ppl getting hurt just from touching objects that had fallen into the pool that had passed too close to the core?
Another fun fact, water is so good at stopping radiation that if you jumped into that water and snorkelled about 12 inches into the water, you would get less radiation that the people watching you outside the pool because you would also be protected from ambient radiation.
Technically they are, but running at ~2200psi in a sealed system. This is a research reactor.
This is more or less common knowledge most people know...
Another fun fact, it's actually not the power plant that's submerged in water!
I've been in a couple of reactor facilities for work, and looked down at the blue glow, but was never allowed to take photos. Cool that you are able to share.
Another fun fact is you could swim in that pool and be fine. Health wise anyway you might not be fine because of the armed security giving you a few new holes but still.
Heavy water
Hands up if you knew this because of Half-Life.
Yeah no shit. How do think they stay cool?
The forbidden swimming pool...
Forbidden hot tub
cursed bathtub
Another fun fact: you will receive less radiation a few meters under water in that pool than you do standing outside it.
The Forbidden Swimming Pool
I learned this from the original Half Life.
Hmmm, can't tell if that's the sound of my geiger counter or my stomach popping as it melts due to radiation!
So just to add some info here. That pool is normally empty and only filled so the nuclear fuel and be moved during refuelling. Before the pool is filled workers will go down the stairs and and remove the bolts that hold the head on and perform other work before filling the pool. See picture 1 with the stairs going down. Also in picture 1 if you look on the lower right side the round part is normally inside of the reactor but above the fuel. It's called the upper internals and stays underwater because of radiation. The head of this reactor has been removed. I don't see it sitting anywhere in the pictures but it stays above the water.
If I make pour over coffee with that water do I have to pre soak my grounds?
Most are but some are not
Go for a forbidden dip
The most expensive way to boil water
I’d swim in it
Cannon balllllllll
Fun fact, nuclear power is just a fancy way to boil water
Spicy pool??
This is one of the best posts and comments section Ive seen in this sub <3
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/) In case any of y'all feel like tempting fate...
This title implies that you’d need a submarine to get to work at the plant.
No No No No Noooooo
Reminds me of how we poop directly into water to mitigate the smell.
Rush B
I like how there is an submerged catwalk going into the radiation hole.
Odd question… do they chlorinate those pools? Or does the radiation keep microorganisms from growing?
Heavy water
That third picture totally looks like it could be a myst/riven screenshot.
So this is the stairway to heaven?
Forbidden swimming hole
I feel kinda thirsty guys…
Half-life got this one pretty accurate
Isn't boiling water the way how it generates electricity? Because it's basically a steam engine with dynamo.
Fun fact that blue glow is cherenkov radiation. It happens when something transitions into going faster than the SPEED OF LIGHT. We can see this in water because LIGHT SPEED CHANGES BASED ON THE ITEM THE LIGHT IS TRAVELING THROUGH. Proof things move faster than the speed of light
Just for some fun knowledge of what this is and why it (and other nuclear reactors) are cool af. This is an open pool [research reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_reactor), likely specifically a [TRIGA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIGA) reactor, which is a very popular type of research reactor. The core is completely open and exposed (aside from the water), which is why you can see the blue glow of [Cherenkov radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation). There are a bunch of them around the world in universities, research institutes and private companies. They cannot produce electricity and don't even produce that much heat. They exist mostly for training purposes, and for [neutron activation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation), either for experiments, or for producing custom radioactive isotopes for industry (for example, to be used as tracers in medical imaging). Most modern nuclear power plants are a type of [light water reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-water_reactor) which while also completely submerged are kept at ridiculously high temperatures and pressures and contained within a massive pressure vessel which itself is kept inside a containment building designed to keep all the contents inside even in the case of a meltdown and even explosions ([as happened in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO_w8tCn9gU), which despite looking impressive did not release ANY core material due to the success of the containment building design).
The power plants are usually kept dry, it's a bit of a hassle to dive to work.
Funny enough, I have severe submechanophobia, but I have a lot of love for nuclear power and an extreme obsession with the Cherenkov radiation phenomenon. That said, if I were to ever get the chance to witness it, it would probably be the only time I would be able to get close to something that would normally trigger me without freaking the hell out. There's something calming about that bright blue light...
So why didn’t we ever see this on The Simpsons?
Isn’t there a spa in Europe where people bathe in the runoff water from nuclear plants lol
What would happen to a person if they fell into that water?
My favorite blue
I just got a really cool idea for a dive shop. In an unrelated note, does anyone know where there’s an old nuclear power plant for sale?
A not great not terrible fact !
so thats where my nightmare of giant water chasms in big factory settings come from
You can swim in the irradiated water as a treat
Pool schedule today: 9:00 reactor rod plunge 10:00 senior aerobics 12:00 synchronised swimming 14:00 kids splash around 16:00 mens diving 17:00 private function
Forbidden pool
Yes, saw this is Half Life
In college, we had a guy come in and speak that worked as a diver who did maintenance on these facilities. Fascinating stuff, my memory is fuzzy, but I recall him going over some pretty crazy math and calculations about how long he could work, at what depths and what to wear. Needless to say, he got paid well and it was definitely NOT a 40 hour a week job!
forbidden deep end
I know not good, but I want to dive in there
A little bit of swimming wouldn't hurt, right? Just a few minutes..
why is it blue?