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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
T. W. L. Sanford, L. J. Lorence, J. A. Halbleib, J. G. Kelly, P. J. Griffin, J. W. Poukey, W. H. McAtee, R. C. Mock
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 114 | Number 3 | July 1993 | Pages 190-213
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24033
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An intense reusable source of pulsed photoneutrons is developed that produces ≈0.5 or 1.0 × 1014 neutrons in an ∼15-ns pulse from natural lead or depleted uranium, respectively, on the HERMES III electron accelerator. Corresponding to this source, a numerical model is developed that is applicable to other pulsed-power systems. If Vp represents the peak voltage of HERMES III measured in megavolts, then model predictions show that over the range 12 MV < Vp< 20 MV, the number of neutrons produced per incident electron is 7.2 × 10-6(VP — 11)2.0 and 1.2 × 10-6(VP — 7.4)2 8 in lead and uranium, respectively. Measurements using a set of nuclear activation foils confirm these predictions as well as predictions of the spatial and spectral distribution of the neutrons at Vp = 19 MV.
