12/31/2024
President Jimmy Carter passed away today.
I wrote this piece about him in response to a viral post. Unsurprisingly, that viral post stretched the truth a smidge, but he did his share of heroics cleaning up that nuclear disaster. In a long life filled with acts of service, the one that left him with radioactive p**s for six months might be the one that the fewest people know about.
May his memory be a blessing.
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A viral post went around that made President Jimmy Carter out to be some sort of goddamned superhero who personally averted a major nuclear disaster.
After some fact checking, I guess we’re adding Jimmy Carter to the MCU now.
Today’s Moment of Science… Jimmy Carter & the 1952 Chalk River Nuclear Accident
The first nuclear reactor outside of the US was operational in 1945 at the Chalk River Laboratories in Deep River, a town about 200 kilometers north-west of Ottawa. The Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP) was followed two years later by the more powerful National Research Experimental reactor. Better known as the NRX reactor, this is its story. .
To help prep for your career as a nuclear engineer, fission is initiated by ticking off some uranium with an ambitious neutron. This releases several products including an assload of energy, some additional rambunctious neutrons, and of course nuclear waste (which is another article entirely). Under the right conditions those piping hot neutrons can then crash land into even more uranium atoms in a sustained chain reaction.
If you want something to release a lot of energy all at once, a chain reaction with no brakes is suitable for a nuclear bomb. In order to harness the power of the friendly atom into something more, uh, compatible with life as we know it? A couple of moderating substances are the difference between a reactor and a kablooey. The NRX reactor used heavy water to slow down neutrons enough to cause the reaction in the first place and boron carbide control rods to absorb them, keeping the reaction in check.
Speaking of.
The heart of the NRX reactor was arranged in a hexagonal lattice of tubes. At 6cm in diameter, they allowed slender but hefty uranium fuel rods encased in aluminum to pass through. The heavy water level was adjustable, and while twelve tubes were reserved for control rods, it took only seven to bring the reaction to a halt. The control rods were suspended by electromagnets, a failsafe with a gravitational assist to put them to work in the reactor in the event of a power outage.
On December 12th, 1952, a series of mishaps stacked. The level of heavy water wasn’t adjusted correctly for the research being conducted that day. Other parts of the elaborate cooling system had been taken offline. Some valves were accidentally opened, allowing air pressure to be depleted from the pneumatic system responsible for raising and lowering the control rods. A red light signaled in the control room if the control rods were inserted into the reactor- stick a pin in that.
The lab’s supervisor didn’t pull a Dyatlov here. When he saw the red lights weren’t on and heard what I’m sure were a couple of ominous beeping noises, he hauled ass out of the control room and closed the valves himself. When he got back, the red lights were on.
It’s unclear why, but the control rods only went partially into the reactor. This was somehow enough to trigger the fuggedaboutit light.
When the supervisor called his assistant asking them to press a couple of buttons, no big deal. The assistant saw the red lights were on for enough other control rods, so it was probably fine that he was sure he heard his boss say to press the button that pulled out four control rods, not the button to push them all the way in.
It was not, indeed, fine.
Power levels climbed as they frantically tried to get control rods back into place. Fuel elements melted, and within minutes there was a hydrogen explosion and radioactive bu****it flying into the Ontario wilderness.
The first major nuclear ‘whoops’ just went down. It’s unclear what the immediate reaction was by locals, but given that the meltdown was in Canada I’m guessing there was a cacophonous harmonizing of “f**k” and “sorry.”
The International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) ranks nuclear accidents from 0-7. Levels 0-3 are considered ‘incidents,’ the flesh wounds of nuclear accidents. These are non-lethal and unlikely to cause significant harm to the public. Outside of the nuclear industry, most of these are long forgotten. On the other end of the scale, the two level 7 accidents in history were Chernobyl and Fukushima, while the only level six was the all too often forgotten about Kyshtym disaster.
Most of the nuclear f**kery I’ve written about- the Tokaimura accident, SL-1, Windscale, Goiania- have been levels 4 or 5. These types of accidents are generally bad enough that they may cause fatalities from radiation and require some disaster management beyond putting on lead pajamas for a light dusting. Managed properly, these aren’t ‘devastate life in a region for ten thousand years’ accidents.
When the INES scale came out in 1990, the Chalk River accident was rated a 5.
The clean-up effort took a small army, somewhat literally. The staff of over 800 at Chalk River were joined by 170 Canadian military personnel and 150 American military personnel. The first task was sending the forty inches of radioactive water in the basement fu***ng anywhere else. A mile-long pipeline was constructed in ten days to move a million gallons of water and nuclear bu****it out of the basement to a safe holding tank.
After they crossed their fingers and prayed that their makeshift radiation water slide would survive the Canadian winter, they got to work on the reactor. The damaged fuel rods were hefty, removing them was complex, and they were still spewing so much radioactive crap that even in protective gear? You got a minute or two, tops, before being pulled out.
Workers practiced on a replica reactor set up on a tennis court nearby, getting acquainted with every last nut and bolt in the system. They were then lowered into the reactor in full protective gear, taking apart whatever they could grab in ninety seconds before being pulled back out.
The good news is that these steps averted what could have been a f**k-this-particular-chunk-of-Earth-forever style nuclear blunder. The reactor, however, was determined to be beyond repair. After five months of careful disassembly, the reactor was just goddamn hauled out in a half hour and taken less than two miles away to a sandy grave.
So, President Jimmy Carter, newest member of the MCU.
The way this story made the rounds, I got the impression that Jimmy Carter, fully trained nuclear physicist, slung his giant balls over his shoulder, led a team uphill both ways in the Canadian winter, fought nuclear monsters, and returned with the power to wield Mjolnir.
Well. Look. This one’s a mixed bag, and if you’re going to shoot the messenger, please let it be with a tranquilizer dart because I need a goddamn nap.
His bachelors- though stacked with engineering courses- is a general studies degree. When in the Navy he was accepted into the fledgling nuclear submarine program, working on designing reactors. He took a six month course of study on reactor technology and nuclear physics in conjunction with his work in the Navy (this is sometimes reported as ‘graduate courses’), and it’s unclear if this was for course credit. He worked at Knolls Atomic Power Lab for some practical experience.
And of course there was that time in Canada when he got blasted with so much radiation by being lowered into a nuclear reactor that he p**sed radioactive urine for six months.
As a Navy lieutenant, he wasn’t in charge of the plant workers, the Canadian military personnel and all the American military personnel. He was in charge of his crew of twenty-three men that was sent to join the monumental effort. And, like all of them, he took on the heroic task of throwing himself into a goddamn nuclear reactor when that’s what was asked of him, health of his swimmers be damned.
Pretty sure that’s more than heroic enough.
Carter has referred to himself as a ‘nuclear physicist,’ which some have contested. I’m not sure at what point classroom training and practical work meld into some titled expertise. But also, I don’t get to make that decision, and President Carter knows way more about nuclear reactors than I do.
This has been your Moment of Science, still hoping it’s going to be tranq darts.
