Jim Redelfs wrote in
:

In article ,
"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:

If, hypothetically, those rods could be ground into the finest powder
possible and dumped into a lake that serves as the water supply for 3
million people, what do you suppose would be the results, and I mean
PLURAL results? The next day, the next week, the next year. Tell me
about the results.

Very young children and the oldest adults would be hardest hit.
(Women and minorities, too, of course.) They would, however, have to
consume large quantities of seriously contaminated water.

For the bulk of the rest of the consumers, they would probably ingest
(probably) about the equivalent of a couple or three chest x-rays.
Given that the average adult is traditionally UNDER-hydrated, the
effect would probably be less.

It would take a *LOT* of ground-up, spent fuel rods to successfully
(fatally) contaminate an open reservoir serving 3-million consumers.

Such hypotheticals are wonderful entertainment for those that
preoccupy themselves with dead-end scenarios but of little concern to
those with an otherwise "normal" life.

trying to handle radioactively HOT spent fuel rods is a *quick* suicide.

Wikipedia has a nice piece on pebble-bad reactors and the fuel
"pebbles",fully describing the outer shell each pebble gets,and discusses
security.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net