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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.
Kodai Fukuda, Delgersaikhan Tuya, Jun Nishiyama, Toru Obara
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 194 | Number 3 | March 2020 | Pages 181-189
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2019.1665459
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Removal of fuel debris is regarded as one of the most important operations in the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (1F-NPS) to decrease long-term risk. To begin the operation, the consequences of possible criticality accidents must be evaluated in advance. In this work, we evaluated radiation doses during possible criticality accidents at 1F-NPS in assumptive fuel debris systems. In particular, the relationship between the water level surrounding the fuel debris and the radiation dose was investigated. This is because the water level surrounding the fuel debris is thought to have an impact on radiation dose during accidents as it affects both the reactivity and shielding of radiation. A combination of space-dependent kinetic analysis and radiation transport analysis was carried out in order to consider the special characteristics of fuel debris systems in water. Instead of traditional point-kinetics analysis, we used the Multi-region Integral Kinetic (MIK) code, which is a unique method based on Monte Carlo neutron transport calculations. The radiation transport calculation code Particle and Heavy Ion Transport Code System (PHITS) was used as well. The analyses revealed that the dose caused by criticality accidents may be the largest in systems in which part of the fuel debris is exposed to the air.