| Author | Thread |
|
|
05/14/2012 01:56:38 PM · #1 |
Linkie (democratandchronicle)
Well sort of - make great headlines I guess but it's less than those words usually mean. I thought this was amazing and figured I would throw it out there...... (via Kottke.com) |
|
|
|
05/14/2012 02:07:51 PM · #2 |
I'm not sure what the article was about because it told me my free access had expired ...
Which is odd, since I'd never been to that site before. |
|
|
|
05/14/2012 02:27:44 PM · #3 |
| i sure enjoyed my complimentary access.. for 2.5 seconds :) looked interesting though |
|
|
|
05/14/2012 03:29:57 PM · #4 |
That thing launched THIRTY data-mining bots on me LOL.
R.
|
|
|
|
05/14/2012 03:39:57 PM · #5 |
|
|
|
05/14/2012 04:41:38 PM · #6 |
oh surely not....enriched Uranium is a very protected substance
|
|
|
|
05/14/2012 05:10:38 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by cowboy221977:
oh surely not....enriched Uranium is a very protected substance |
They built the reactor in the mid-70's -- it was a different world then. I was aware of it back in the 80's, actually; I had a friend who did research at Kodak and used it. I thought it was long gone, though. I'm surprised to hear it was only decommissioned 5 years ago...
|
|
|
|
05/14/2012 09:37:33 PM · #8 |
| Nice information through the photos. |
|
|
|
05/14/2012 10:51:24 PM · #9 |
I like all the other related articles:
- 5 Everyday Things that Are Radioactive
- Radioactive Rain Across the US Is Natural
- DIY: How to Split Atoms In Your Kitchen
And I am pretty sure I saw this ad pop up...
 |
|
|
|
05/15/2012 05:11:03 AM · #10 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
That thing launched THIRTY data-mining bots on me LOL.
R. |
Hummm..... Sorry... It worked fine for me and no bots or nasties :-)
Here is the text since the other article was different....
For more than 30 years, Kodak Park was home to a little-known underground labyrinth containing a small nuclear research reactor, one of the few of its kind in the world.
It wasnât a power plant, and carried no risk of explosion. Nothing ever leaked. Eastman Kodak Co. officials say the research device was perfectly safe.
Still, the reactor was locked down, remotely surveilled and tightly regulated â mainly because it contained 3½ pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Thatâs the material that nuclear bombs are made of. Terrorists covet it.
When Kodak decided six years ago to close down the device, still more scrutiny followed. Federal regulators made them submit detailed plans for removing the substance. When the highly enriched uranium was packaged into protective containers and spirited away in November 2007, armed guards were surely on hand.
All of this â construction of a bunker with two-foot-thick concrete walls, decades of research and esoteric quality control work with a neutron beam, the safeguarding and ultimate removal of one of the more feared substances on earth â was done pretty much without anyone in the Rochester community having a clue.
In the annals of local information that was never truly public knowledge, this one deserves its own chapter.
The existence of the device was not, strictly speaking, a secret.
It had been mentioned many years ago in research papers, and was referred to obliquely in a half-dozen public documents on a federal website, though none hinted where it was located.
âIt was a known entity, but it was not well-publicized,â said Albert Filo, a former Kodak research scientists who worked with the device for nearly 20 years.
Company spokesman Christopher Veronda said he could find no record that Kodak ever made a public announcement of the facility. He also wasnât sure whether the company had ever notified local police, fire or hazardous-materials officials.
Current city of Rochester officials, whose personnel might have been summoned to Building 82 had an untoward incident occurred, said they were in the dark. Monroe County officials did not provide comment despite several requests.
The Democrat and Chronicle learned of the facility when an employee happened to mention it to a reporter a few months ago.
The recent silence was by design. Detailed information about nuclear power plants and other entities with radioactive material has been restricted since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Nuclear non-proliferation experts express surprise that an industrial manufacturer like Eastman Kodak had had weapons-grade uranium, especially in a post-9/11 world.
âIâve never heard of it at Kodak,â said Miles Pomper, senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington. âItâs such an odd situation because private companies just donât have this material.â
Neutron imaging
Starting decades ago, Kodak had an interest in neutrons, subatomic particles that can be used to determine the makeup of a given material or to create an image of it without damaging it.
A steady stream of neutrons is needed for these purposes. Kodak used small research reactors, including one at Cornell University, and possessed a dollop of californium-252, a radioactive isotope that endlessly sheds neutrons.
But it wanted a more potent in-house system, so in 1974 it acquired a californium neutron flux multiplier, known as a CFX. Small plates of highly enriched uranium multiplied the neutron flow from a tiny californium core.
Kodak used it to check chemicals and other materials for impurities, Filo said. It also was used for tests related to neutron radiography, an imaging technique.
The device was not much larger than a refrigerator and, in the one available photo, looked vaguely like Robby the Robot from a 1950s science fiction movie. To house it, Kodak dug a cavity below the basement level of Building 82, part of the companyâs research complex along Lake Avenue.
The 14- by 24-foot cavity was reached via a corridor with several right-angle turns and a spiral staircase leading to Building 82âs basement, according to a description of the area included in a decommissioning plan Kodak prepared for regulators. The plan and other documents were made public on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission website after the uranium was removed.
Only key personnel could go into the CFX chamber, and never when it was running. Samples to be tested were sent to and from the device by pneumatic tube.
âThis device presented no radiation risk to the public or employees. Radiation from the operation was not detectable outside of the facility,â Veronda said.
The chamber was cleaned and deemed fit for reuse, but remains empty, Veronda said.
Kodakâs CFX was the first such device ever built for industrial research, according to a 1978 article by company scientists published in a scholarly journal. NRC records indicate that at the time it was dismantled, no other American industrial firm had anything like it.
âThis particular device was unique,â said Filo, who left Kodak in 2010.
Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, scientist-in-residence at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., said he was aware of fewer than 50 devices worldwide, mostly in the Russian Federation, that were analogous to Kodakâs CFX.
âI have no idea why they would need a reactor for R&D,â he said of the Rochester company.
Security issues
For many years, the United States has worked to minimize the use of highly enriched uranium and secure as much of it as possible to keep it from the hands of terrorists or rogue nations.
Caches of the material in old reactors and military sites in parts of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe have been scooped up, and research reactors in this country and elsewhere have been closed or converted to eliminate the use of highly enriched uranium fuel.
Reactors at Cornell and the University at Buffalo are among those that were closed. The one remaining research reactor in New York, at Rensselaer Polytechnic University, no longer uses highly enriched uranium.
âAll but a few stocks of civilian highly enriched uranium have been eliminated in the United States,â said Matthew Bunn, an associate professor at Harvard University and a former White House adviser on nuclear-materials security.
The worry is that as little as 100 pounds of highly enriched uranium and some rudimentary knowledge is sufficient to make a crude but effective nuclear explosive, Pomper said. Terrorists might try to acquire the needed amount by stealing smaller qualities, like Kodakâs 3½ pounds.
âWe spend lots of money around the world getting equivalent amounts out,â he said.
Veronda said federal officials didnât pressure Kodak to get rid of its unique device. âWe decided it was no longer required, as there were alternative and less expensive means to obtain the analytical results,â he said.
Uranium ensconced in a reactor, even a small one like Kodakâs, would be very difficult to remove and to steal. Such material is considered more vulnerable during transport â which is why, as a matter of policy, shipment dates and routes are kept under wraps and involve what Bunn called âsome pretty serious security measures.â
He mentioned a recent instance when spent fuel from the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyâs research reactor moved through Cambridge. A colleague told Bunn the shipment was accompanied by two armored vehicles and a helicopter, all carrying armed guards.
Documents made public on the NRC website after the Kodak shipment took place indicate it went to a federal facility in South Carolina. A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which watchdogs nuclear materials at home and abroad, said it cooperated with other federal and New York state officials in transporting the Kodak uranium but provided no details.
Thatâs the way Washington likes it. âThe federal authorities oversaw the process and we deferred to them on all matters related to it,â Veronda said. âClearly the decision was that it was best not to publicize it.â |
|
|
|
05/15/2012 06:08:05 AM · #11 |
|
|
|
05/15/2012 06:54:11 AM · #12 |
Uranium was used in pottery glaze. Some of the old Fiestaware is radioactive because of it.
A friend of mine was working in a cluttered lab at the local community college when he discovered a block of uranium, wrapped in lead sitting in the back of a storage closet. He and the rest of his co-workers spent the rest of the day in lockdown/decontamination including showers in a hastily erected decon facility in the hospital parking lot supervised by guys in bunnysuits with full breathing apparatus. Evidently the stuff had been used to balance wooden propellers and really was only very mildly radioactive. I think the HazMat teams just wanted an excuse to play with their decon gear. |
|
|
|
05/15/2012 07:17:27 AM · #13 |
One training excersize in the army we had to train with a hazmat team...we had to "decontaminate" vehicles, our gear and ourselves. It was a very in-depth training. It was also nice to be able to get a shower in the field...since we never had that luxury.
|
|
Home -
Challenges -
Community -
League -
Photos -
Cameras -
Lenses -
Learn -
Help -
Terms of Use -
Privacy -
Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 04/08/2025 03:47:00 AM EDT.
