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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
No impact from Savannah River radioactive wasps
The news is abuzz with recent news stories about four radioactive wasp nests found at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The site has been undergoing cleanup operations since the 1990s related to the production of plutonium and tritium for defense purposes during the Cold War. Cleanup activities are expected to continue into the 2060s.
H. W. Lewis
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 86 | Number 1 | January 1984 | Pages 111-112
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A17975
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A very simple application of the canonical Bayesian algorithm is made to the problem of estimation of the probability of core melt in a commercial power reactor. An approximation to the results of the Rasmussen study on reactor safety is used as the prior distribution, and the observation that there has been no core melt yet is used as the single experiment. The result is a substantial decrease in the mean probability of core melt—factors of 2 to 4 for reasonable choices of parameters. The purpose is to illustrate the procedure, not to argue for the decrease.
