RSOE EDIS: Nuclear Event - State of Minnesota

RSOE EDIS: Nuclear Event - State of Minnesota

hisz.rsoe.hu

Staff at the Prairie Island nuclear power plant are looking for six tools containing radioactive material that have been reported missing. Xcel Energy says the tools contain sealed radioactive materials, with significantly less radioactivity than what's found in residential smoke detectors. They were discovered to be missing during an inventory taken in December. Xcel says the situation does not pose any safety threat to plant workers, the public, or the environment. The company reported the mis

(visit the link for the full news article)

Although this does say that the materials aren't highly radioactive, it's still a bit shocking.

If these have been reported missing, what will come up missing later on? Also, how easy is it to just lose something like this? Is there anyone on ATS who is an expert in this field?

I'll keep an eye on it for an update.

hisz.rsoe.hu
(visit the link for the full news article)

Is there anyone on ATS who is an expert in this field? What, nuclear engineering or security of nuclear devices? Are you kidding?

Anyhow, I don't think this is suitable for the breaking news section and as mentioned in the article the missing items pose no greater risk than your smoke detector. Therefore I assume they are not kept in a secure location such as anything that is actually dangerous, hence why they've seemingly been easily lost.

It seems like these are reported more and more these days. Nukes missing here rodioactive material missing there. Just imagine the things that are missing that we have no idea about. I'm sure it goes unreported most of the time
maybe they are saving the big report for when they are ready to initiate martial law.

MessOnTheFED!

I smell another false flag event sprouting from this. I think they are going to nuke Las Vegas, NV. Think about it, the economy is bad, no one is gambling, it is the end of that careless spending era in America. At first, it didn't make since why they all of a sudden decided to build these new pretty high rises, but when I think about 9/11 and all the money that was made from insurance claims, all of a sudden, I smell a couple of rats.

I've been plagued by these nightmares of nuclear warfare in my hometown (Vegas) ever since I was a child. Maybe it will finally happen.

This is another nuclear event happening in the US.

A problem cropping up at nuclear plants around the country has occurred at Vermont Yankee, with the discovery of a radioactive isotope called tritium in a monitoring well on the Vernon reactor site. Plant spokesman Robert Williams said the monitoring that found tritium in the well is part of an industrywide program to check for the isotope of hydrogen. He said the level is about half the amount that would be required to be reported to federal authorities and poses no threat to public health or safety. Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry engineer who has consulted with the Legislature on issues related to Vermont Yankee, on Thursday said, "It's a sign that there's a pipe or a tank leaking somewhere" at the plant. "It's highly unlikely that the highest concentration in the ground would happen to be at the monitoring well."

EDIS Link

You should read the situation update on it as well.

Edit to remove unneeded comment.

[edit on 20-1-2010 by sporkmonster]

I worked as a Nuclear Chemist for some time so I can try to elaborate on this issue. Residential smoke detectors contain about 1 microCurie of Americium-241, which is an Alpha-emitter. As long as Alpha's don't become airborne or don't enter your body cavity, you're safe.

I don't know what nuclides are missing, and that's the info I really need to make a sound opinion. You can hold a bunch of C-14 and be fine or you can hold a tiny amount of Cobalt-60 and get quite a dose. The fact that they are sealed tools means they probably are gamma or beta sources as alpha particles couldn't make it through the sealing material.

All in all, not that big of a deal. The entire time I worked in the lab I received less radiation than someone living in Denver (higher altitude = higher gamma radiation) and I worked with this stuff everyday. Granted, I wasn't in the industrial department which had to work behind leaded glass and use robotic arms lol.

Sorry, I didn't answer the original questions. Actually, it's relatively easy to 'lose' something like this. My guess is that the tools were either old or became contaminates so they put them into a drum of radioactive waste. These drums contain all sorts of waste like when you wipe clean your work area, you have to throw the wipes into the 'nuclear waste' even though there might not be any radioactive material on it. All your gloves, vials, and pipettes are added to these drums.

The interesting thing is that you can put a lot of radioactive waste in a drum but the field strength of the drum won't increase. If a tool becomes contaminated say, by some gamma radiation, it may not be usable as it might skew the tools ability to measure radiation or you might risk contaminating a beta source/tool with this gamma-contaminated tool.

I bet someone discarded the tools and forgot to write down that exact fact and some audit caught the mistake.

I worked in a NIST traceable lab so we were very worried about cross-contamination as we created standards for other labs and institutions so they could calibrate their equipment.

What is so hilarious here is that the place they are talking about it not surrounded by much, a swamp, the Mississippi River and that's about it, not a place terrorists (read, government agents) could get in and out of easy without being noticed. I live about 50 miles from it. So I see a big false flag about to go down if anything. Next to a Reservation too, blame it on the Natives!!

I smell a cover up.

If they have less radiation then a in home smoke detector, who cares?????

No, somehow, the story got leaked so the cover up is damage control.

What ever happened to the missing nuke from Grand Forks, ND? "Opps, were did I put that silly nuke? I'm always misplacing those things." Yeah, right.

Somebody is putting together a nuke. And a whole bunch of people don't care.

reply to post by amance


Thanks for such expert information. Would said audit cause an alert to be put out on EDIS?

They were discovered to be missing during an inventory taken in December.

If the audit caught the mistake, why does it say, missing tools, when it could just be a clerical error?

It was reported on EDIS today at Log date [UTC] 20/01/2010 - 05:06:47.

They have had at least 3 weeks since the inventory was taken.



[edit on 20-1-2010 by sporkmonster]

reply to post by sporkmonster


It really depends on the regulatory environment at that particular facility and how 'by-the-book' the RSO (Radiation Safety Officer) is. Tools could be a something mildly complicated like a geiger counter or tools could mean some of the various tongs and devices used to grab radioactive material containers out of the lead 'pigs' (containers) as they are called.

The main point should be finding out what nuclide they are referring to. If I'm not mistaken, it was legal to dispose of most common levels of Carbon-14 into the sink as it is so harmless. Granted, this was never done and I don't think there was a sink in any of our labs.

reply to post by sporkmonster


I just read the Situation Update No. 1 from that page but it doesn't give that much extra info. Xcel was already under the microscope so they probably had to report everything, no matter how minor. Then, the NRC is probably required by law to submit that report to EDIS.

The regulations vary wildly depending on the nuclide. If U235 is missing, that's a HUGE deal as that is weapons grade Uranium, and probably any amount missing must be reported. The agency inspector found them "not to be of concern from a radiological standpoint."