Fwd: 60th criticality accident- Copy of note sent to BBC

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

Copied below is a note sent to a BBC reporter, Ms. Ali McConnell,  who had 
been pulling together a story on the Japanese accident this past week.  
Perhaps some of the comments might be of interest to members of this board on 
the thread being discussed.

Stewart Farber
========================
<<Subj: Fwd: 60th criticality accident- 
Date:   10/1/99 4:49:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:   <A HREF="mailto:RADPROJECT";>RADPROJECT</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:ali.mcconnell@bbc.co.uk";>ali.mcconnell@bbc.co.uk</A>


Dear Ms. McConnell:

When we spoke yesterday about the accident in Japan, you asked how many 
accidental criticalities had occurred previously. Attached is a listing from 
a DOE training course of a few years ago.

I am quite familiar with the Wood River, RI accident since I conducted 
environmental radiation monitoring programs nearby in the early 1970s for a 
proposed nuclear power plant a few miles distant. I had a chance to meet with 
the Wood River Plant operators when this small fuel reprocessing facility 
[reprocessing fuel elements from Navy nuclear reactors in a plant operated by 
United Nuclear] was still in operation and reviewed various reports in the 
open literature about the accident.

What is of interest to me is, in looking at the ten accidental criticality 
accidents in the attached, how fortunately, there have been relatively few 
fatalities in these various accidental criticalities during some 50 years of 
nuclear operations. 

I'm not trying to downplay the serious nature of accidental criticalities 
since they represent a breakdown of all controls that are supposed to be in 
place to prevent such an occurrence. However, the occurrence of any 
accidental criticality must be evaluated vs. the frequency of their 
occurrence and the range of consequences that result vs. the total benefit of 
the operations [such as total power produced] that are tied to the nuclear 
operation involved.

Compare the consequences of the 10 accidental criticality accidents attached, 
to the record of major accidents that have occurred in other fuel cycles such 
as coal mine accidents which have killed hundreds of miners in a single 
accident, or collisions between coal transport ships and passenger ferries 
which have killed 1,500 members of the general public in some cases. 
Accidents in transporting gas and LPG by pipeline have resulted in some 
accidents that I can recall which killed over 500 members of the public on a 
train in Russia back around 1989 when leaking gas filled a valley and then 
ignited as a train passed through the valley consuming a passenger train. 
These accidents are part of one limited element of the coal or gas fuel 
cycles, and to be balanced one would have to evaluate all elements of each 
fuel cycle for demonstrated or likely risks to compare one to the other.

Every form of energy has its "price" and not just in dollars. Ultimately the 
public has to decide if the overall risks of any fuel cycle [whether nuclear, 
coal, oil, gas, biomass, hydro, solar, etc.] per unit energy produced vs. the 
incentives for that particular energy source [assessed on economic, 
environmental, climatic, and strategic grounds] make a given fuel cycle more 
or less acceptable or even desirable.


Regards, 

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project
172 Old Orchard Way
Warren, VT 05674


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-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:    RE: 60th criticality accident
Date:   10/1/99 11:30:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From:   Andrew_Karam@URMC.Rochester.edu (Karam, Andrew)
Sender: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
Reply-to:   radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu (Multiple recipients of list)

our local paper printed today a news from afp (agence france presse),
that yesterdays accident in Japan was the 60th criticality accident in
history of nuclear power. Can anyone verify or falsify this number or
lead me to an appropriate list?
--------------------------------

According to a criticality safety course handout I received at a DOE
training course in 1993 there have been 10 recorded criticality accidents,
all but one in the US (the other was at Windscale in 1958).  These are:

Los Alamos      8/8/45  1 death, one other exposed
Los Alamos      5/21/46 1 death, two others exposed
Oak Ridge Y-12  6/16/58 no deaths, eight exposures
Los Alamos      12/30/58    1 death, two others exposed
INEEL           10/16/59    no deaths, three exposures
INEEL           1/25/61 no significant exposures
Recuplex (Hanford) 4/7/62   no deaths, three exposures
Wood River      7/24/64 1 death, two others exposed
Windscale (UK)  8/24/70 no significant exposures
INEEL           10/17/78    2 deaths, others exposed


Andrew Karam, CHP              (716) 275-1473 (voice)
Radiation Safety Officer          (716) 275-3781 (office)
University of Rochester           (716) 256-0365 (fax)
601 Elmwood Ave. Box HPH   Rochester, NY  14642

Andrew_Karam@URMC.Rochester.edu
http://Intranet.urmc.rochester.edu/RadiationSafety
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