nuclear-news

Putting plutonium or other materials too close together could cause a nuclear reaction.

Oversight panel: Nuclear lab workers violated safety rules
Putting plutonium or other materials too close together could cause a nuclear reaction. Daily Herald, , September 23, 2017  SANTA FE, N.M. — A national laboratory’s workers producing a shell for a triggering device for nuclear weapons violated safety rules in August by storing too much material at one location in a facility for plutonium, a highly radioactive material, a federal oversight panel reported.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board memorandum called the Aug. 18 incident at the Los Alamos National Laboratory a “criticality safety event” and said workers there discovered the placement error made by a casting crew three days later when they moved the grapefruit-sized shell again.

The workers at that point failed to follow proper procedures for reporting the Aug. 21 action, the safety board said in a one-page memorandum dated Sept. 1. The report doesn’t specify whether the shell itself contained plutonium.

The Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican reported Saturday on the safety board’s memorandum.

Michael Golay, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has served on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s research review committee, told the New Mexican there are strict controls on the use of nuclear materials because putting plutonium or other materials too close together could cause a nuclear reaction.

Golay said he could not comment on the specific conditions at Los Alamos……..

Los Alamos — the birthplace of the atomic bomb and still a premier nuclear research facility — is resuming production of the plutonium triggering devices, which are called cores and which haven’t been made since 2011. The Energy Department wants to ramp up production.

While Los Alamos officials have said the plutonium facility is operating safely and that improvements have been made in recent years, the oversight board earlier this year found that many of the safety systems in place at Los Alamos date to the 1970s and needed to be upgraded…….https://www.heraldnet.com/nation-world/oversight-panel-nuclear-lab-workers-violated-safety-rules/

September 25, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA