During an exercise, the fire sprinkler system in a laboratory building was activated. Approximately 2000 liters of water affected 9 rooms in the facility. The water was gathered and collected in storage tanks. No radioactive contamination was detected in the water nor in the equipment used in the cleanup.
On the day of the event a live action exercise was being conducted. The fire sprinkler system had been turned off so that smoke machines would not trigger them. When the fire sprinkler system was re-activated, a pre-warning was triggered at the fire station and the sprinklers were accidentally activated. 10 sprinklers were active for approximately 15 minutes, resulting in 2000 liters of water pooling on the floors of 9 rooms in the facility.
There has been no contamination detected in the resulting water. Tools used to swab the water, and the floors themselves, were also tested for contaminants after the water was cleaned up. Background levels in the facility are normal.
Location: Institute for Energy Technology, Kjeller Event date: Wed, 04-09-2024
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
