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Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
N. Prolingheuer, M. Herbst, B. Heuel-Fabianek, R. Moormann, R. Nabbi, B. Schlögl, J. Vanderborght
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 924-930
Dose/Dose Rate | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9328
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
At sites with powerful particle accelerators, the problem of groundwater activation by direct neutron radiation arises. Licensing of particle accelerators requires evidence that groundwater activation is within the legal limits and thus will not endanger workers, the public, or the environment.In this study we focus on the following radionuclides: 14C, 41Ca, 45Ca, 36Cl, 55Co, 57Co, 60Co, 3H, 54Mn, 24Na, 32P, 35S, 32Si, and 50V. The conventional approach for calculating activation of soil and groundwater is described and utilized for a fictive 5-MW proton accelerator at Jülich, Germany, with a beam loss of 1 Wm-1. An updated overview of partition coefficients for relevant radionuclides in sand, clay, loam, and organic soils is presented. Based on the two aforementioned methods, groundwater activation is estimated with a simplified homogeneous groundwater transport model. The results indicate 3H, 14C, and 36Cl as the most relevant radionuclides concerning the resultant activity concentrations and estimated dose rates at the site boundary. For this fictive test case, the site boundary is located a distance 250 m downstream of the accelerator, which leads to acceptable risk for the public, given the legal standards.