If I ingest a grain of sand size piece of the Chernobyl Reactor No.4 core

Re:If I ingest a grain of sand size piece of the Chernobyl R... by codeduck on Sunday June 02, 2019 @03:54PM (#20077670)

1. There were two explosions - the second of which destroyed the reactor core and distributed parts of the reactor structure (including fuel) over the area.

2. That speck of spent fuel is still radioactive enough after 30 years to push most nuclear industry workers over their annual permissable dosage. Chernobyl itself is still phenomenally radioactive - but is far less so than it was immediately after the accident.

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Re:If I ingest a grain of sand size piece of the Chernobyl R... by StreamBright on Sunday June 02, 2019 @04:17PM (#20077824)

Given that half time is 50000 years for some of its content its is not a big surprise.

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Re:If I ingest a grain of sand size piece of the Chernobyl R... by dgoodell on Sunday June 02, 2019 @07:43PM (#20079210)

The dangerous part, and the part that is discussed in the article, is CS-137, which has a half-life of about 30 years. The longer the half-life of something the less radioactive it is.

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Re:If I ingest a grain of sand size piece of the Chernobyl R... by StreamBright on Monday June 03, 2019 @10:39AM (#20083538)

>>> That speck of spent fuel is still radioactive enough after 30 years to push most nuclear industry workers over their annual permissable dosage. Chernobyl itself is still phenomenally radioactive - but is far less so than it was immediately after the accident.

I was refelcting on this, not the original article and not on CS-137.

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