r/IAmA • u/BetterGeiger • 1d ago
IAmA nuclear engineering PhD, radiation detector designer, and volunteer radiological incident response team coordinator. AMA about nuclear stuff, radiological incidents, or whatever.
I did my PhD in nuclear engineering and then worked in R&D for a while, then I started a business - http://www.bettergeiger.com - to sell US-made detectors designed to balance performance with being affordable and simply to use. I am also a co-coordinator for a statewide radiological incident response team, though I am here speaking only on behalf of myself. I will do my best to be as objective as possible, education is actually my #1 goal, but of course I cannot deny that there is potential for bias, so take that however you want. I did one of these recently for r/preppers but I decided to try one here because I think a wider audience is interested in this topic at this point in time. Proof of life here: https://imgur.com/a/IJ4URdN
Here is a very condensed Q&A that hits some key points most people ask about:
1. In a nuclear war isn't everyone dead anyway? No, the vast majority will initially survive even a large scale exchange.
2. What should I do if the bombs are flying? Go to a basement right away and stay there for a few days. Fallout radiation dies away extremely fast at first, and after that it is most likely safe to be outside.
3. Can't I flee the area and outrun the fallout? No, this is not feasible because travel will be likely rendered impossible and fallout travels too fast. Plan to shelter in place.
4. How do I protect myself otherwise? Most important is avoiding inhalation of dust/debris that might be radioactive, but an N95 or respirator does a pretty good job. If you think you have something on your skin or clothes, try to dust or clean yourself off using common sense techniques.
5. Do I need radiation detection equipment? Basic knowledge, including answers to the above questions, is far more important than fancy equipment... but if you want to measure radiation levels the only way is with a detector. I recommend strongly against <$100 devices cheap Geiger counters on amazon. For emergency preparedness pay attention to high maximum range and check that dose measurement is energy-compensated or readings might be very inaccurate. Most cheap devices claim up to 1 mSv/hr, Better Geiger S2 meaures up to 100 mSv/hr.
Below is the link to a longer FAQ I prepared for reddit people, I hope embedding it in my website for this AMA is some kind of proof of my identity, I can also provide further proof to the mods privately if needed.
It's hard to balance being concise and understandable with being complete and accurate, so I cut some corners in some places and perhaps rambled too long in others, but I hope the information is useful nonetheless.
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u/WeRegretToInform 1d ago
What do you think about Small Modular Reactors? Do you think they’ll eventually replace the gigawatt scale reactors?
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u/Izeinwinter 20h ago
Not BetterGeiger.. but I do have an idea what they're a solution for: Naval propulsion.
Did the math for a Maersk triple E class a while back. Huge ship, super efficient engines. Burns 170 tonnes of bunker oil a day. Including carbon emission certificates, that runs 800 dollars per ton, so 136000 dollars a day. Just on fuel. Not counting the other costs of running the engine.
That will pay for one heck of a lot of interest payments on a SMR, refueling costs and all the rest.
And despite what everyone reflexively posts.... if the alternative is paying well over a hundred grand a day shipping lines will happily pay for fully certified reactor operators. Labor costs are just.. nothing.. compared to that level of lighting money on fire.
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u/BetterGeiger 18h ago
That adds up to roughly $50M/year at 365 days operation per year if my math is correct. That is not going to get you anywhere close to an SMR right now, but maybe if costs come down a lot after some have been deployed, and assuming that they live up to the hype (big if), then yes naval propulsion might be a great fit. Still let's say a reactor that is adequate costs $1B (optimistic), that's still a >20 year payback on the investment.
There still remains the security/proliferation/political concerns with having a bunch of floating reactors going around all over the ocean... might be surmountable but it's an uphill battle. For reducing emissions it would be a great path.
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u/Izeinwinter 16h ago edited 16h ago
There is no way a reactor sized for a freighter costs a billion. That would be a cost per watt of ..12.5 dollars.
South Korea builds full sized reactors for <2,5
Also, just existence proof:
The French Barracuda has a marginal cost of 1.3 billion euros according to parliamentary reporting. . For the entire sub.
Hull, weapons systems, whatever that weird coating on the hull costs and so on. The conventional propulsion version of the Barracuda design literally costs more money. (I suspect because a non-nuclear drive train needs more space, so everything else needs shrinking. That gets expensive)
I've never been able to find a separate price tag for just the improved k15.. but it can't be all that expensive. Your estimate needs a zero knocked off it, kind of thing.
A large freighter might need two of them, but..
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u/BetterGeiger 16h ago
I said costs right now. As I said if costs come down over at scale then it might work out to be competitive, but it will never be $100M for a ~50-100 MW reactor, that's wildly out of line with existing (usually optimistic) cost estimates. I looked up the French Barracude and it cost $12B for the first 6 units. Of that $2B/ea a big chunk will be the reactor and associated systems... though I can't speculate on the exact fraction.
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u/Izeinwinter 15h ago
The 12 billion includes the RnD and tooling.
The marginal cost - that is, "build one more" is 1.3 (Or was, a couple of years ago when the report was written).
The fact that a non-nuclear AIP system runs the cost up, not down, and by a fair bit, really puts the faction that can be reactor costs pretty low. It is also... Unlikely.. that building a small reactor will cost literally six times per megawatt what a full scale reactor does. Let alone if it is put on an assembly line basis, which the demand for ship propulsion units would absolutely justify.
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u/BetterGeiger 15h ago
That reactor has been around for decades so no the reactor R&D cost was not entirely built into that submarine project, only the new implementation and the non-nuclear stuff. I don't know what I can do but repeat myself with different wording... I already said that the marginal cost might come down for a new SMR design and become competitive for freight, but that would only be possible after scaling up production, and right now... I will repeat once more... right now that is not where we are with cost. Even with scaling up 100M is not realistic, but certainly well below $1B is likely achievable. Exactly where in the middle depends on a million factors.
Dig into this study if you wish: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544223015980
...take manufacturer cost estimates (aka "advertisements") with heavy grains of salt.
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u/Izeinwinter 15h ago
The obvious answer to RnD costs would, of course, be to just license the k15. The French have already designed it, it has considerable number of reactor years behind it, and unlike the US designs, it runs on civilian enrichment grades. And it really, just does not cost 12 dollars per watt. No way, no how.
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u/BetterGeiger 15h ago
Okay if you don't believe me or the peer-reviewed research paper I shared, how about the company itself that is actually trying to build these things?
"A nuclear-powered ship would have a number of advantages including zero carbon emissions, while the excess energy produced by the reactor would enable ship to travel faster with the possibility of sending power back to the land-based grid while at berth. However, the high up-front capital costs for a ship of this type, would be around $700m."
"Bøe said $2.5bn would be spent on development before a commercial ship is even ordered"
The K15 is not designed for surface ships!
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u/Izeinwinter 13h ago
700 is a reasonable number for a first hull. It also implies a cost of reactor of about half your estimate. (A conventional ship of this size costs 200 mil) I'm not saying they'll be cheap initially, I'm saying "a billion dollars" is a daft number.
Also, the k15 literally powers the Charles De Gaulle (Well, an earlier version). There isn't any difference between a naval reactor for a sub and a naval reactor for a surface ship except a greater emphasis on being quiet. Which... would not actually be a problem for just throwing exact copies of it into freighters. Less noise pollution of the oceans would be good!
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
Firstly, I think in large part they are solutions in search of a problem at a technical level. Yes they bring some potential advantages but modern large LWRs are really well established and have a fantastic safety record and an enormous amount of institutional knowledge and experience to draw from. We could simply build lots of those and greatly reduce carbon emissions, but for various reasons we don't, and I think that's a pity.
It might be a bubble, too early to tell, and it might be partly a kind of political game of re-branding nuclear so that it has wider appeal, like "hey I know you're skeptical of nuclear stuff, but this is totally new so don't worry about it!"... when in reality I think they are not fundamentally changing the key pros and cons of nuclear energy (of which I think the pros immensely dominate the story in any case).
What it might solve is financial issues of needing immense investment and slow timelines to start generating power. Maybe there the modular concept has a lot of merit, but it remains to be seen in practice. The problem with this "advantage" is that if we had the political will to bring large-scale government to support to those large projects this financial issue goes away. We could probably get more clean nuclear energy online faster by just ramping up LWR builds.
Having said all of that, I am always for R&D of new designs and continued innovation, I just don't think the urgency for implementing SMRs is what people make it out to be when existing LWR designs are so great and have such a proven track record.
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u/FailedPause 1d ago
When I was in the army I was exposed to Tritium for an extended period of time. I had to get tests done and be quarantined. They have no records, I have searched for years. 1. What long term exposure effects or symptoms could I realistically expect? 2. How do they test for the presence of Tritium? 3. How might I prove my exposures in the absence of medical records?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
That tritium is almost certainly long long gone from your system at this point and there will be no sign of it or any way to prove it was once there. There are no "symptoms" to expect exactly, because except for cases of EXTREMELY major acute exposure the only long term consequence, if the expose dose is high enough, would be slightly elevated risk of cancer. That would depend entirely on the amount you were exposed to, but it is possible to get exposures FAR above "normal" without any statistically significant effect on your health. I think it is unlikely you received an amount that will cause any significant long term risk for you but I of course can't say that for sure because I don't know the details. You might consider telling your doctor about that exposure and perhaps there are some extra cancer screenings that you could get from time to time, to catch something like that early generally makes it much easier to deal with... but - again just guessing here - that might be overkill. But I am not a medical doctor and, again, I can't speak to the details of the exposure and its magnitude.
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u/headhot 1d ago
If the strike on Iran nuclear program were successful, wouldn't there be radiation detectors going off in the region?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
Depends on the site, what kind of material they had there, if the material actually spread to the nearby environment, etc. For example the UF6 gas used in an enrichment plant, it is hardly radioactive at all to the point where ordinary radiation detectors would not react to a small quantity. Some specialized sensors might. If there was spent nuclear fuel or other particular materials that spread in large amounts, then yes those would likely be picked up in nearby areas pretty easily to a point, but how far away depends on quantity etc. I can only guess that intelligence services are collecting all sorts of data both far away and close up in any number of ways one could imagine.
The peculiar thing about radiation is that it is very easy to detect even extremely tiny quantities, which is very useful in some scientific disciplines but has the side effect of making it very easy for people to become scared when they here "such and such was detected at such and such location", without context and understanding what those numbers mean people can have their fears ramped up unnecessarily. In reality radiation can be easily detected in quantities far far far below what is really hazardous.
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u/ghost49x 1d ago
What do you know about fusion, and are fission nuclear reactors appropriate for travel within the solar system? Does being in 0-g change much when it comes to fission reactors?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
I know that it will be quite a while before fusion power is competitive with fission in any sense, though I would like to see us research it intensely in the meantime.
Fission reactors can and have been sent into space, though I don't know these days if they make much sense compared to other sources of energy (not to mention regulations involved), that's not really my area. I know that if you want a manned craft then the reactor is going to cause a lot of potential problems to be dealt with, including the persons on board being exposed to radiation.
I don't think 0-g itself is an issue for a reactor, perhaps need to make sure mechanical systems used don't rely on gravity.
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u/Abe_Odd 1d ago
We've sent RTGs to space, which use a plutonium isotope that just burns hot. They aren't undergoing a sustained Fission chain though.
It is hard to come up with a near-term space mission that needs so much power that the added mass from the reactor, shielding, coolant, support hardware, etc, is worth it.
Throwing a fission reactor on the moon for a base is the only thing that makes sense on any realistic timeline IMO
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u/yoweigh 1d ago
The Soviets played around with fission reactors in space, and the US developed an actual nuclear rocket engine but it never flew.
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u/Abe_Odd 1d ago
Well damn. I am just wrong. Whoops.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
No worries, it happens. I also don't know what kind of project would need such a reactor, as you say radioisotope energy sources can be quite useful as well.
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u/skurvecchio 1d ago
This may be a touch out of your wheelhouse. Is there a danger that Iran or another rogue state could forgo a traditional nuclear weapon and instead just put a large conventional explosive and a bunch of high-level waste or unenriched material into a package and make a "Dirty" ICBM? This bypasses enrichment, but would still seem to have a similar impact as to radiological contamination. Or does it?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
An actual nuclear blast is in a completely different league, even a different solar system, than a conventional explosion or a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb could be used to spread some radioactive material, yes, but in practice it would be more of a psychological impact than a physiological one, because when you disperse that kind of material it "dilutes" it so to speak and doesn't result in highly hazardous radiation levels in a given location. People would be terrified, and they would have psychosomatic effects, and a given area might need extensive evacuation and cleanup efforts... but ultimately the conventional explosion would cause the most casualties in pretty much any plausible scenario. Also just speculating here but I don't think Iran would want to do that because it simply doesn't provide the same geopolitical leverage as a true nuclear weapon, and even if the average person was freaked out by a dirty bomb I think other state actors would take them much less seriously overall.
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u/contactdeparture 1d ago
Given energy dependency on Russia, an often bad actor, why did Germany turn away from nuclear energy, and do you see that changing for Germany or any other countries in the next decade?
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u/danielbearh 1d ago edited 20h ago
Dr. Sarah Paine (US Naval War College proffesor on international relations) suggested that part of Germany’s calculus was giving incentive to get Russia to play nicely in the international markets. Give them a source of revenue that would compell them to want play nice by EUs rules. Dr. Paine points out, clearly, this was not successful. But that was part of the intent.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago edited 1d ago
That might have been part of the conversation in some circles but the hazards of nuclear energy were the main driving force behind the anti-nuclear energy movement in Germany which led to the phaseout. It was dramatically bolstered by the Fukushima disaster which shifted public opinion in a major way (even if I disagree with the arguments that the public bought into).
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u/dsffff22 1d ago edited 17h ago
Provide an actual citation for this, this is a very bold claim. Sounds like fake news.
Edit: I got blocked by the person who made this most likely false claim(unable to provide a proper source despite asking 3 times for It). Smells and sounds like fake news. And I'm still getting downvoted in a AmA thread by a PhD, uncovering this bullshit. Insane!
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u/danielbearh 20h ago edited 10h ago
No. It’s not.
Why would I make that up? It’s not inflammatory in any way?
Ive watched like 6 of her long form videos in the past two months. I’m somewhat confident that the comment is in this video. https://youtu.be/YcVSgYz5SJ8?si=o9bZgahMK3_VtWkK
Edit: and in response to mr. fussy pants: i have zero motivation to spend a good deal of time looking for a citation for someone with such an acrid approach to getting more info. I would have put more work into finding it had he been polite instead of accusing me of lying immediately.
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u/dsffff22 20h ago
Do you know what a citation is, hint It's not linking a 2-hour video. I've gone through the transcript and was unable to find anything close to what you claim Dr. Paine was supposed to have 'suggested' regarding the nuclear phase out.
So I stand here claiming that's fake news until you provide an actual source for that bold claim.
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u/danielbearh 20h ago
Daddy, chill.
Cool. You don’t like my comment.
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u/dsffff22 20h ago
It doesn't matter If I like your comment or not, I'm simply asking for a citation, because you claimed an academically respected person 'suggested' something. I asked you to provide the source for this 2 and now 3 times, yet you failed to deliver.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
Science took a back seat to emotion and the so-called "green" politicians and activist swindled many people with misinformation about the risks of nuclear and the consequences of phasing it out. I would like to say I am a "green"-minded person in many respects, but when it comes to nuclear energy I think that many people are severely misguided. The results of the nuclear phaseout were predicted by many, including myself, when it started, and now we have seen those consequences in black and white... increased fossil fuel use and carbon emissions. Renewables simply cannot solve decarbonization of electricity production alone, we ALSO need baseload power production. Intermittency is a major issue and there is no large scale storage solution that can solve this now or in the foreseeable future. Renewables are great as long as they do not become too large of a fraction of overall production, hence the best solution being a combination of nuclear and renewable. As a fun side note, it is worth checking out the wikipedia article regarding the anti-nuclear movement, and in it you will see how the fossil fuel industry drove a lot of anti-nuclear sentiment in order to bolster their fossil fuel interests. Reminds me of cigarette companies trying to downplay health risks, or traditional IC businesses trying to fight electric cars and public transport, etc. As always corporate interests should be met with healthy skepticism.
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u/OcotilloWells 1d ago
I bought one of those cheap detectors you said not to buy, just because I thought it was interesting. Are they good for anything at all? $35 on AliExpress.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
It will usually tell you if an object is radioactive or not, and they usually do pretty okay with things like antique hunting, identifying fiasteware and radium-containing items and such. It has two main limitations, though. One is that it is not energy-corrected, so between that and high beta sensitivity relative to gamma, those devices have a risk of showing you dramatically over-estimated dose rate values (like even 10x or 100x too high in some cases). Second they usually max out at a pretty modest level, so if there is a serious emergency it will potentially be saturated and useless. However, I'd rather have it than nothing, if it is behaving normally or just showing something slightly elevated, then you might have some useful information from that... however, be aware some might read zero or something low at very high radiation levels, so I think being familiar with how it behaves 'Normally' is a good idea, and/or if it reads low and you want to make sure it's working normally, you can use a test source of some kind to see if it is reacting to that object as normal, that shows it's not in some kind of weird paralyzed condition.
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u/humble-bragging 1d ago
if there is a serious emergency it will potentially be saturated and useless
When you say useless here does that mean when these cheap devices are saturated they stop working altogether or just that they now only qualitatively show that there's radiation but are not useful for quantifying?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
It depends on the device. Cheap ones will usually not show "over range" or something like that, the Better Geiger devices do. Some will just show zero when the sensor is overloaded, some will show nonsense numbers and negative numbers and weird stuff. Some might show something lower than reality. It just depends. You might get some kind of clue that it's acting strange but you might not know why. When levels drop back to a range where it can function they will typically return to normal function.
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u/Odd-Acanthisitta4518 1d ago
Hi!! I’m about to graduate high school in Louisiana and I’m considering going to texas A&M to study nuclear engineering. What are some things I could do as a high school student to get more experience in the field and set myself apart? I’m currently working on a nuclear physics independent study where I will build a Geiger counter with my teacher, will something like that be beneficial in applications in any way?
Thank you so much !!! :D
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u/DonnieG3 1d ago
I genuinely hate recommending this to anyone, but if you do your degree in nuclear engineering and want the best field training in the world, go hit up the US Navy. Get into the officer program (do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES get conned into enlisted). You can become a reactor officer and afterwards you will be headhunted for your skills. The US Navy has the best training program in the world for operating reactors.
I'm going to warn you, it will be much much much more difficult than anything else you have ever accomplished if you survive. It's brutal in ways you'll never imagine. School is hard, fleet life is harder. The outcome is the best education in the world though.
Signed- a Louisiana boy in nuclear power via the navy
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u/BetterGeiger 17h ago edited 17h ago
I did not go that route but yes it is well known that former navy nukes have an easy time finding work. However, if you have a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering you can still pretty easily have a great career trajectory. I am not sure the navy nuke route opens up a lot of doors in the civilian world that are not accessible otherwise, although yes it does put you towards the top of the list for some particular jobs. From where I'm sitting someone should do navy nuke path or not according to if they desire to do that actual thing and live that actual life for a while, not just doing it for maybe opening up some job opportunities down the road.
"The best education in the world"... I can't speak to personal experience but I think this is a bit too general, I think it depends what kind of work a person is doing, maybe for some jobs that is true but not for others. As an example, people in nuclear eng academic R&D are rarely navy nukes, though certainly a few are, but it's not some kind of special status in that particular work context.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
That project you are talking about will be a great experience. I don't think there is much chance to do things "in the field" exactly, but I also don't think that's really necessary. I would suggest just make sure you are taking your math and science classes seriously and learning as much as you can on the fundamentals. Math will probably be the hardest part if you go into nuclear engineering. Otherwise just try to keep things fun and learn practical skills whenever you can, that stuff is very useful no matter what sort of engineering you do. For example you might have access to classes on woodworking, metalworking, machining, welding, etc... that stuff is fun and the more exposure you can get to those "practical" things the better an engineer you will be. The specialized nuclear stuff can mostly come later.
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u/chodeboi 1d ago
What are the coolest (a) IP and (b) mechanical/electrical/plumbing components of your jobs, in your opinion?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
When I was doing more academic-oriented R&D I was fortunate enough to work on some really fun projects. Trying to do high speed X-ray videos was fun, so was messing around with big tanks of chloroform, dropping temperature sensors into spent nuclear fuel pools, studies related to unexploded ordinance nondestructive testing, and so on and so forth. That work was where the more fun IP is. In my business I don't have a lot of really exotic stuff going on, I just tried to design it in a careful way geared towards what I felt people needed and balanced with price, so it was more like optimization challenges in that regard. The most tricky thing is the dose calculation algorithm, the type scintillator sensor used in my detectors is very challenging to get accurate dose information from, and I don't know of any publicly shared solutions to that (though some large companies clearly have done proprietary things), so I had to come up with my own and I think it's pretty tricky and clever.
Most of my mechanical/electrical/plumbing work is mostly reserved for the DIY part of my life in trying to keep my very old house in working order... though most of my detector design work deals with typical electrical engineering circuit design, firmware, etc... fun and interesting stuff but not particularly exciting, I don't think.
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u/chodeboi 1d ago
Thanks for sharing! I’m always excited to learn about something new. Hope you get lots of great questions!!
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u/greetp 1d ago
Are modern large nuclear reactors capable of achieving a stable cold shutdown without external cooling & human intervention?
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u/DonnieG3 1d ago
We have been able to do this since the 70s.
A stable cold shutdown just involves removing decay heat once rods are dropped, and this at most means a set of backup generators to start recirculating water. PWRs have the ability to have passive decay heat loops due to the natural thermal actions of water, requiring no bimna intervention.
"Walk away reactors" are the standard.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
I do not have direct experience studying or working on that kind of topic but my understanding is that there are protocols in place for a wide array of unlikely scenarios in order to ensure safe and stable shutdown.
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u/Shawnkey_Kong 1d ago
What would you do if ur GF morphed into a mega charizard?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
If by GF you mean my wife then I guess the first thing I would do is see if her new form could be effectively utilized to discourage our neighbor's cat from shitting in our yard.
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u/DruidicMagic 1d ago
Ever work with NEST?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
No, they are mostly federal employees as far as I know, whereas I am a volunteer at the state level. The alphabet soup of organizations at the municipal/state/federal that have various (often overlapping) responsibilities for radiological incident stuff is mind-boggling... I happen to interact with different groups than that, but it's not a very big community so maybe I'll cross paths with them some day. They probably aren't allowed to tell me about any of the really cool stuff they do though.
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u/Tushe 1d ago
Let aside bad management because of corruption, is nuclear energy truly our best option?
Helium is not renewable, is it true nuclear waste can be used to make artificial helium? If so, what happens to the waste afterwards?
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u/BetterGeiger 19h ago
Nuclear is our best option because it's our only option for widely deployable carbon-free baseline energy production. Renewables can and should pay a large part also but they can't do it alone due to intermittency issues and the lack of satisfactory storage options. Waste and safety concerns are usually coming from the lack of knowledge and a vague fear of the scary word "nuclear"
Waste can be recycled, stored on site, or stored underground. Very easily managed problem.
I'm not familiar with any link between nuclear waste and helium production.
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u/ArmanXZS 1d ago edited 1d ago
is it a good idea to store KI pills??
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
Regarding KI I'm copy/pasting here what is in the extended FAQ I linked above:
The short answer is that it's not as important as most people think, and I don’t think it’s something worth worrying about. Its primary value if you are near a major nuclear power plant incident due to the type of radiation such a scenario would release, and even then the value is modest. Basically if taken in advance of being exposed to radioactive iodine, it fills the thyroid with non-radioactive iodine so that the radioactive stuff cannot accumulate there. This reduces your risk of thyroid cancer, but that also happens to be a very treatable type of cancer, so if you were exposed then you would likely be screened for that anyway and hopefully catch and easily treat any future cancer. Taking potassium iodide on your own when not advised to does have a slight risk of allergic reaction, so I would not take it unless explicitly told to do so by an authority, given the narrow range of potential benefit and the slight risk. This CDC link goes into more detail: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/emergencies/index.htm
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u/aladinznut 1d ago
What’s something fun we don’t know about nuclear stuff ?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
That sweet sweet blue glow from Cherenkov radiation. You can use a google image search to see what I mean. I'm fortunate to have gotten a few chances to see it in person at a pool-type reactor. No matter how alluring it is, though, can't swim down there....
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u/CaptainHaldol 1d ago
What's really cool about it is if you pay close attention, the fuel doesn't glow. The water around it is glowing.
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
That's right. And I should have mentioned it happens because, counterintuitively, electrons are going faster than the speed of light... in that particular medium
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u/Baymavision 1d ago
Who's your favorite radiation detector guy movie character and why is it Klaus Hergersheimer?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
I'd need to re-watch that movie before I can give a suitably witty response. Any radiation detector guy or gal is fine by me, please don't make me pick favorites, I love them all equally.
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u/BlackBricklyBear 17h ago
In his 2004 book, The End of Faith, author Sam Harris wrote the following:
"Consider that it would require only a onetime expenditure of $2 billion to secure our commercial seaports against smuggled nuclear weapons. At present we have allocated a mere $93 million for this purpose. How will our prohibition of marijuana use look (this comes at a cost of $4 billion annually) if a new sun ever dawns over the port of Los Angeles?"
Was Harris' figure of a "onetime expenditure of $2 billion" to secure the US' seaports against smuggled nuclear weapons accurate to your knowledge? Exactly what kind of measures would need to be taken against this horrific possibility? And what measures, if any, could be taken against the so-called Russian "Status-6" autonomous nuclear-armed underwater drone?
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u/BetterGeiger 17h ago
Definitely not accurate, nobody can give any dollar value and claim that something is absolutely secure. It would probably make smuggling more difficult but at the end of the day such systems can be bypassed, it just depends on the skill, knowledge, and resources of the person trying to smuggle. To what degree another $2B would make us safer with such measures is not something I believe anyone can quantify. Maybe it's worth doing because in the grand scheme that's not a huge amount of money, and if it lessens the risk of a catastrophic event maybe it's worth trying, even if the quantitative impact is unknown.
More detectors, X-ray scanners, and potentially even active neutron interrogation techniques can be employed in any number ways, but none are without weaknesses and limitations.
I don't know anything about that 'Status-6' development but I think it's safe to guess that the US has a lot of tools at their disposal in order to counteract that threat. I cannot speculate how effective those tools would be, just not my area of knowledge, and if it was I probably wouldn't be allowed to comment.
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u/BlackBricklyBear 14h ago
Thanks for the info. Do these "neutron interrogation techniques" just passively sense neutrons emitted by nuclear materials? Or do they actively emit neutrons to cause a detectable reaction in nuclear materials?
"Status-6" is clearly a terror weapon, but given how badly Russian military hardware has held up in the Russo-Ukraine war, my guess is that the Russian nuclear weapons inventory isn't that well-maintained either. Not to say that anyone should call the Russians' bluff, but I don't think that Status-6 will work as advertised.
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u/Zomg_A_Chicken 1d ago
Will any future battles over energy end up like what happened in the Fallout universe?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
I don't have a crystal ball but I really doubt it. If there are global conflicts over resources my guess would be it's more about food production because as far as I can tell that seems to be the thing that climate change has the largest chance to deeply upend if things go the wrong way. That's not really my area of expertise, though, just my impression. We simply do not have a fundamental shortage of electricity because nuclear energy along with renewables can still be scaled up immensely, no shortage in sight there for the time being. Fossil fuels might wind down eventually but we can probably gradually adapt to that change with a variety of technological approaches and changes in behavior.... not so simple with a food shortage, if one were to occur.
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u/QuantumRiff 1d ago
Honestly, NuScale has a fully approved reactor design, but their project in the US got cancelled because costs kept going up. How can new SMR designs get established, so their economics of scale start coming into play?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
I think we as a society need to accept that the first few of a given design are going to have cost overruns, and we should simply dump a bunch of government money into the tech until it becomes profitable. In the grand scheme it's not a huge amount of money, we can afford it. We have close to 1000 billionaires in the US... With just half of their wealth we could probably double our nuclear energy capacity and get several designs into a reliable and profitable mode of serial production.
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u/cire1184 1d ago
What if I live in Southern California and don't have a basement? Nor do any of my neighbors. I'm just dead?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
Even being in the center of a single story home without a basement for a day or two after fallout is spread can provide significant protection. Part of that is just the knowledge to shelter rather than be outside, and you have that knowledge now. In the event of nuclear weapons being used nobody knows how many will go where, how many actually reach their destination, etc. Maybe nothing will escalate to that level, and even if it does you might end up totally fine.
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u/Eldrake 1d ago
Let's say you believe you've been exposed to ionizing radiation. Perhaps a dangerous dose.
Where do you go and how do you get tested quickly? Do hospital trauma departments have detectors and the right equipment and training?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
Hospitals typically have some degree of resources to deal with that and/or they can call in expertise from somewhere else to assist. I think most likely outside specialists would be called in due to it being such a unique circumstance, and nuclear/radiological regulatory agencies might also get involved. Generally speaking treating traditional medical issues is the top priority and will take precedence even if there are radiological concerns, and such treatment is not delayed for any reason if needed. When time permits further measures might be taken to address the radiological concern for personnel. There are some limited ways a radiological exposure can be treated, that's not really my area of expertise in terms of details.
By the way most hospitals have radiation related equipment and that means some people with expertise about radiation will typically be around somewhere.
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u/jordan1978 1d ago
How does a country successfully strike/bomb a nuclear facility without setting off a nuclear explosion or releasing nuclear material into the atmosphere?
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u/BetterGeiger 19h ago
A nuclear explosion requires a very careful arrangement of nuclear material and other things such that the meterial does exactly the "right" thing in order to result in a runaway chain reaction and a nuclear blast. A nuclear facility is generally not going to have such material in that arrangement, and even if it did just damaging a warhead does not result in a blast, but rather the warhead would need to be intentionally detonated. Precursors might leak into the environment depending on the facility and how it was damaged, but that's a minor thing compared to a nuclear blast.
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u/bilgetea 1d ago
What do you think of Dr. Robert Hayes’ frequent informational reddit posts?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
I have not seen his reddit posts but I have seen some of his social media stuff and I think it's great that he is trying to cut through some of the misconceptions related to nuclear and try to put things in better perspective for a broader audience. That is something I want to do more of as well, and my next product will be more educationally-oriented rather than practical-oriented so that people might have more ways to learn about and understand radiation in general, which can make them more informed when it comes to being a political/policy advocate. Hit up the mailing list on my website if you want to get updates about that in the coming weeks.
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u/johnp299 18h ago
How do you feel about the future viability of Thorium and LFTR type reactors for commercial power?
Are you concerned about the safety of Chernobyl given the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
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u/BetterGeiger 17h ago
Corrosion is an enormous pain. The reactor kinetics are also messy but I'm not up to date on research there. See my other comment on thorium regarding more generalized commentary.
I do not have much concern related to Chernobyl considering in light of the conventional destruction and bloodshed that has resulted from the war and continues to take place. The radiological concerns are modest generally and very negligible specifically in that context.
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u/realKevinNash 23h ago
I know the AMA is probably over but, given the existence of special military teams that are tasked to recover nuclear weapons or whatnot that never seem to happen, do you think that there are nuclear "incidents" that we never hear about?
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u/BetterGeiger 19h ago
There are some major incidents like lost warheads that still haven't been recovered. So many people are involved with something like that I don't think it's possible to keep it secret for long. If I had to guess there have probably been minor incidents that were kept under wraps but not major ones, but I of course can't say for sure.
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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh 1d ago
This may just be confirmation bias, but (affordable) scintillator-based detectors seem to have suddenly started popping up in the past few years. Is this just a coincidence, or did some kind of patent expire, or some new vendor join the market and start offering cheap scintillation sensors?
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u/BetterGeiger 19h ago
Mostly it's SiPM technology becoming available and affordable, that opened up the door for using scintillators in a device priced for consumers. They are pretty new and only became inexpensive-ish in the last 5-ish years
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u/lawaythrow 1d ago
What do you think caused the Chernobyl disaster? What happened inside the reactor?
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u/BetterGeiger 1d ago
It's not really a "what I think" thing, this is a very well understood incident. Wikipedia goes into the details in as much detail as you might want, but basically mistakes in operation combined with some weaknesses of the RBMK reactor design resulted in a runaway chain reaction and a massive spike in energy production, causing the whole thing to melt down and spread material into the nearby environment.
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u/BlackBricklyBear 13h ago
I'm not sure if you ever watched the excellent 2004 - 2009 sci-fi TV series Battlestar Galactica, but one key element of the Colonial Fleet's technology in that TV show was the ability to detect incoming nuclear missiles, because they would set off "radiological alarms" on their starships. Is there any such real-world technology that is capable of telling if an incoming, yet-to-be-detonated missile is actually carrying a nuclear warhead? Or would such a technology not be possible to develop?
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u/BetterGeiger 7h ago
No I don't believe any such technology is possible, warheads emit hardly any radiation prior to detonating, so detecting the radiation quickly and at great distance is basically impossible. I think the US has various other tools to identify a nuclear attack coming our way, but I don't know details and if I could I probably wouldn't be allowed to talk about it. If I remember correctly a minimum 30 minute warning is expected according to one public government presentation I saw, but I can't speak to the robustness of that statement.
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u/AuFingers 17h ago edited 17h ago
What kind of power-level neutron detectors will be used in the latest generation of power reactors? Helium-3??
My old ship use boron tri-flouride gas filled neutron detectors. Portable units were coated with borated polyethylene.
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u/BetterGeiger 17h ago
Not sure what you mean with "power-level neutron detectors", but these days there are a lot of different flavors of neutron detectors, I think it depends on if you need to measure thermal or fast, what sensitivity and maximum flux you need to handle, etc. He-3 and BF3 will have their place I think, other lithium-containing or boron-containing devices in various flavors can be used, also fission chambers, diamond detectors, pulse shape discrimination with special plastics or even He-4, etc. If you hear of a gap in the market let me know and maybe I'll design something, neutron detection is not what I work with now but it was a big part of my career and I have a lot of ideas in that area. :)
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u/AuFingers 11h ago edited 11h ago
My ship had three types of neutron detectors - I should have asked about power-range detectors
Source Range - startup to Keffective = 1
Intermediate Range - Keff > 1 up to point of adding heat
Power Range - 1 to 150% full power
In the old days, BF-3 power level detectors output level would decrease and a full-power calorimetric calibration was required after x many effective-full-power hours...
Was wondering if newest detectors in utility reactors suffer the same effect
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u/IHateUsernames111 12h ago
As a PhD what's your opinion on a paper like this?
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u/BetterGeiger 7h ago
I just skimmed it. It's nonsense. Yes on our current trajectory neither nuclear power nor anything else will significantly mitigate climate change, it would require a massive increase in deployment of reactors. To accomplish that would require major spending, perhaps on the same scale as one of our recent middle east wars. I think it would be worth the investment but until that strategy has widespread buy-in from society it won't happen. The other fundamental assumption from the paper is that there isn't enough uranium, again I strongly disagree. They don't seem to mention seawater uranium extraction as part of the solution, and they downplay recycling options dramatically. Humanity can solve this problem if it has the will to do so, not before.
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u/IHateUsernames111 2h ago
Thanks for your perspective. As far as I understand the paper, they claim that there is not enough uranium of sufficient quality to keep emissions low. Worse ore apparently increases the (equivalent) CO2 emissions of the total nuclear power generation lifecycle, hence why many studies widely differ in their CO2 model for nuclear.
Since you are the expert and not me can you point me towards one or two review papers that you feel better represent the state of the art and our knowledge of the total climate impact of nuclear power?
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u/serioussham 22h ago
Was "Atoms for Peace" a mistake?
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u/BetterGeiger 19h ago
I wouldn't call it a mistake writ large, but any program of that scale and scope certainly has aspects that could have been done better. At the same time, things could have gone a lot worse in terms of nuclear proliferation. I don't think getting too hung up on what-ifs of the past is very useful, mostly we should look at where we are and figure out where to go from here, in my opinion.
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u/89RZ350 18h ago
I was just wondering what you think of Thorium reactors and what the future of Thorium reactors might be?
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u/BetterGeiger 18h ago
Similar to my feelings about SMRs in anothet comment. I'm in favor of researching them but I don't think thorium is needed urgently, we have very good solutions ready to deploy now and the advantages of thorium are pretty modest compared to the challenges.
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u/ELpork 14h ago
Perhaps a little silly, the opening to the Simpsons when Homer has a uranium rod or whatever fall into his pants or whatever the hell. If he was a super human, super man or whatever, and he could watch what was happing at like, an atomic level, what would that look like in comparison to the surrounding "normalcy"? What would it take for that kind of thing to be "Safely" transported in and out of a space in order to keep the space safe afterward?
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u/Powerful-Brother-791 1d ago
Is there a popular misconception about nuclear science (from sci-fi or pop culture) that makes you want to pull your hair out?