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Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Aalo breaks ground in Idaho
Eight days after Aalo Atomics released the details of its securing of $100 million in Series B funding, the company announced that it has broken ground on the 50-MWe Aalo-X. Sited in the desert beside Idaho National Laboratory, it will be the company’s first nuclear power plant, and it remains on track to go on line by July 4, 2026.
Andrew P. Hull
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 2 | October 1989 | Pages 383-394
Technical Paper | TMI-2: Health Physics and Environmental Release / Radiation Biology and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27728
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Although the advance planning for it was minimal by today’s standards, a large integrated federal and state environmental monitoring response was made to the Three Mile Island Unit 2 accident. In particular, major resources were committed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). They include the Brookhaven National Laboratory-based Radiological Assistance Program, the Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability, and the Aerial Measurements System, with backup personnel from other DOE national laboratories. Additional resources were provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. The monitoring effort included plume tracking, field environmental monitoring and sampling, sample analysis, and dose assessment. The ranges of the installed plant monitors having been exceeded, these data were important for establishing the nuclides and their quantities in the daily releases from the plant during the first few weeks after the accident. In particular, it was established that the continuing releases consisted almost entirely of radiogases, with very small quantities of radioiodines. The highest measured ground-level dose rate was 1.3 × 102 C/kg (50 mR/h) and the largest concentration of 131I <3.7 × 10−6 Bq/cm3 (<1 × 10−10 µCi/cm3). From DOE population dose assessment, the highest individual dose appears to have been <1 mSv/h (<100 mR/h) and the total population dose 20 person-Sv (∼2000 person-rems). This largely ad hoc response became the basic model for today’s Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Program, which would be put into operation should a major accident occur at a U.S. nuclear facility.