Reichstag Fire: 102 minutes that changed America

[Col]

But an uncontrolled oil burning fire will not reach those temperatures, despite what tightly controlled industrial processes are used to make steel. Materials designed to provide protection against hydrocarbon fire are tested at temperatures of 1100C because that is the temperature a typical oil fire will get to in the real world.

Now you are just being silly. Oxy-acetylene welding is a highly localised process and involves mixing of fuel with pure oxygen. That is a world away from the conditions that would exist in an industrial accident that results in the 'hydrocarbon fire' that I am talking about.

Col

[Jimbo ...]

so where is it then ? .......

[js.b1]

Yes, but you should see the size of the rat it produced...

[Chris Street]

It was a class 46

If that valve was in fact the weak spot. I've not seen any evidence that says it was weaker than the lid.

From cookridge hospital near leeds in 2002 if I recall. It wasnt in such a flask as there was no need - it was a cobalt 60 source and the source had been left "on" as it were instead of being off.

[dennis]

They weren't actually. They didn't even comply with the NY fire regulations as they didn't have to.

They were built from plaster board and studs. They weren't even going to survive a minor accident.

Rubbish. Many people below the fire did not evacuate until it was far too late.

[dennis]

However it wasn't built that way so what i reasoned stands.

The walls were a tubular steel structure with glazed panels, I thought that was obvious.

[Brian Morrison]

OK, I think that looks very similar to what I thought it was.

That was what Greenpeace claimed, but like you I've not see any properly researched evidence that they're correct.

Ah, was that it? Fairly nasty then, because such things tend to have focused beams rather than just radiating in all directions.

[Chris Street]

Greenpeace are proven liars to further their own objectives - cf the Brent Spar for example. I just assume anything they say is a lie after that

Yes - I understand that the source was in a drilled blind hole in a steel cylinder that collimates the beam, and then it hasa shutter that slides closed over it to turn the beam off as it were. Fortunate that it wasnt a particle source otherwise it would have activated a large number of hotspots where it had parked or waited at lights one suspects.

>

[Brian Morrison]

I find that such organisations are as reliable as governments in their propaganda these days :(. Perhaps it was ever thus....

[dennis]

I doubt if it was as dangerous as stated earlier. If it were a medical source then they are designed to allow doses of several minutes to patients. They are moved around the patient so the radiation passes through several different paths to get to the spot being killed. Having so much output that they killed the patient in a few seconds wouldn't be much good.

If it were a particle source it would have been much safer as the van floor would have been enough to stop most of the beta and the cardboard box would have stopped the alpha. I doubt if it were a neutron source as the metal cylinder wouldn't have shielded it much in the first place.

[Brian Morrison]

If the beam was pointed at the head of a healthy individual it could have been very serious, damaging a crucial part of the brain. I read a report on this from the Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (or something very similar) and they warned that the mistake was life-threatening.

I believe that this was on a trailer of some kind, and the output aperture was not shielded by any of the vehicle structure.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Most radiation is a lot less dangerous than people suppose it is.

The extreme strictures applied to the industry have made it the safest power generating industry in the Europe, as far as the facts go.

Greenpeace are still harping on the disinformation the soviet anti-nuclear-of-any-sort brigade passed out in the 60's.

When nuclear power stations WERE making bomb material, and in fact designed with that in mind. Millions of roubles were poured into anti nuclear propaganda as art of the cold war effort.

In fact the only power stations that were dangerous, were in Mother Russia.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If a car were pointed at the head of a healthy individual, it could have been very serious. Why are these not all shipped in lead containers?

[Halmyre]

Yes, including those well-known Russian satellites of Three Mile Island and Cumbria.

-- Halmyre

[Chris Street]

And of course they blew up just like the RBMK at Chornobyl did as well...

Actually no. TMI did go bang but the containment building held everthing in - just like it was meant to. Meanwhile we killed 4000 people in the Great Smog just so we could have a bigger power disaster than the Russkiys.....

[Brian Morrison]

Apparently the container did not have some sort of plug fitted and hence was open to the outside.

I can't find the detailed report I read a couple of years ago, it explained this clearly.

[Brian Morrison]

And the 1957 Windscale fire almost turned into something pretty devastating.

[Man at B&Q]

And has absolutely no relevance to modern designs of nuclear power plant.

MBQ

[Halmyre]

There was a documentary about that on TV a while back. Scary stuff; using scaffolding poles to try and push the fuel pellets out the back of the reactor, then pulling out the poles and finding the ends white- hot and molten...and the manager on top of the reactor trying to look inside to assess the damage. At one point they connected hoses to the front face of the reactor to try and douse the flames - risking a hydrogen gas explosion.

-- Halmyre

[yaffle53]

Nowadays they'd use Poles rather than poles. Cheers Jeff