Kodak Had a Secret Nuclear Reactor

[gareth19 (imported)]

There's been several accidents.

In the late 30's early 40's the University of Chicago had a small reactor that went critical and irradiated parts of the university there.

There were two men who walked into the target room of a nuclear accelerator near here and survived with various limbs amputated to reduce the radioactivity in his bones. That was about 45 years ago and wasn't publicized. My brother met one of the guys in the rehabilitation room after he had a bone tumor removed from his thigh bone.

I remember the news story about the metal bases of restaurant tables that were made with some radioactive metal and had to be rounded p and taken away.

I know professors who worked at Penn State and were called in to help with Three Mile Island. They were the ones that told us the reactor melted and a new and unknown ceramic formed at the base of the reactor containment. It didn't burn through and sink to the center of the earth or come out at China. Sorry, that doesn't happen. Shit like this scares me. I saw and heard the same lies again in Japan last year.

Chernobyl just is beyond frightful. Several of the men who sealed that reactor knew they would be overexposed with deadly radiation and they did it because it had to be done.

Apparently, updates to the KODAK story tell us that it was decommissioned in 2007 and disposed of properly. Plus it operated within the rules of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and never had an incident or failure. Good for Kodak.

Before its use in nuclear weapons, uranium was a common additive in steel and glass. There is a kind of glassware called vaseline glass made with uranium that gives it a sickly greenish yellow like vaseline. Many older buildings in Denver CO have uranium in the steel reinforcements because uranium was once used like vanadium to manufacture tougher steel.

The worst American nuclear accident was in the 1950s when a military reactor in Idaho Falls went critical. The technicians at the site were killed. That is why Three Mile Island is always qualified as "our worst civilian nuclear disaster." People debate whether the Thresher nuclear sub went critical , the hull malfunctioned, or was attacked by the Soviets.

[Riverwind (imported)]

Very convenient that the Thresher is so deep we will never know what really happened. OH yes another conspiracy for moi to look into.

River

[JesusA (imported)]

Before its use in nuclear weapons, uranium was a common additive in steel and glass.

I grew up with an encyclopedia that was published in 1898. It's entry for uranium read, "A nearly worthless white metal, sometimes used for coloring glass. Found only in Czechoslovakia." I used that quotation a number of times in high school papers to demonstrate the mutability of knowledge.

[fhunter]

There is probably quite a lot of heavily radioactive material floating around in the U.S.. A high school friend had a small room in his basement with all sorts of mysterious containers in it. One of them was a wooden box containing a metal box inside of that was a lead cylinder. The outer box was stenciled with "Danger Radioactive do not open without taking precautions." He was afraid to open it. He who burned through the basement floor with Magnesium and destroyed the neighbor's bathroom with a homemade rocket. The stuff in the small room was left there by his older brother who was a chemistry and physics researcher in Chicago. My friend went on to study pharmacology. Interesting people, but a little out of my league. --FLO--

Just about a week ago, I have seen two guys here, turning a RID-1 smoke sensor in their hands. That, and a screwdriver (my first thought was - if they disassemble that, I do not want to be near it). The sensor contains two Pu²³⁹ sources. This thing is relatively safe, while assembled (just do not sleep, hugging it ), but it is enough to cover few square meters in a material that would "glow in the dark", as Moi speaks.

There are other things, that usually are thought to be safe like radioactive switches (they had radium activated luminophore), but those are not produced since early 1970s. Can be still found though.

[curious_guy (imported)]

Very convenient that the Thresher is so deep we will never know what really happened. OH yes another conspiracy for moi to look into.

River

I am 95 percent sure that I saw a documentary that said that the Thresher was lost because a valve used to put air into the ballast tank had frozen up with condensation from the air. The ice prevented air from entering the ballast tank and the submarine could not surface.

[devi (imported)]

So exactly what was in that Kodak chrome anyway?

[Dave (imported)]

So exactly what was in that Kodak chrome anyway?

There are certain chemical analyses for purity of metals that require neutrons and such things.

Back in the 1980's when BUNKER HUNT and his Brother were trying to corner the silver commodities market, Kodak and Berkey (I think it was Berkey) were the only American companies that made photography film. And, as you should know, Black and White photograph film requires silver metal. The process is silver-based.

So as this effort to corner the commodities market started to show its ugly head, Kodak revealed that it had huge supplies of silver metal either at hand or under contract from the mines at a stable price. It made sense but was not obvious that a company dependent on a precious metal would have thought of a way to stabilize the price of that metal and thus keep their product competitive.

Kodak and Berkey did go to (wait for it because this is spectacular) TIFFANY and CARTIER companies and between the four companies foiled the Hunt Brother's attempts to corner silver. From what I remember (And I had a source on the board at Tiffany's) when the four companies called in the silver futures, the Hunt Brothers had to cough up about one and a half times more than the current supply of silver that existed in the world at the time. And I can't remember if it was a British Bank or a Wall Street Bank that refused to write a loan to the Hunt Brothers to pay that debt. Tiffany and Cartier watched priceless silver art from the American Revolutionary War being melted down for its silver content. That's greed.

And the Hunt Brothers are just one story in a long line of rich investors who try to corner markets and get caught at it.

There is a real story out there about a 50,000 cubic foot storage tank of seawater being sold as Olive Oil that's just the gasping adventure of a lifetime of greed if you look it up.

[moi621 (imported)]

The University of California, Irvine had a iddy biddy nuclear reactor

when the original Physics Building was built in the early sixties.

No secret. A point of pride then. And forgotten.

Time to decommission: "What was that reactor doing in my back yard". That was a few years ago.

Having lived through it all locally, I found it amusing.

Moi

Nuclear, it only takes one oopsy.

Y'all come back in 500,000 years - y'hear. It'll be safer then.

Less thyroid cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, solid organ tumors.

http://gcaggiano.wordpress.com/2010/07/ ... literally/

"The movie was notorious for being shot in the deserts of Utah, almost ten years after the United States Army conducted nuclear bomb testing there. Of the 220 people involved in the film, 91 would die of cancer, including Wayne, director Dick Powell, and every leading supporting cast member: Agnes Moorehead, Susan Hayward, and John Hoyt. Another star, Pedro Armendáriz would also be diagnosed of cancer, but commit suicide after hearing the news. The number does not even include the extras and other people involved in filming. Numerous American Indians who served as Mongolian warriors contracted cancer in later years, and even John Wayne’s son Michael died in 2003 of cancer, after visiting his father on the set at age 22.

What is also even more mind-boggling is the fact that after principle shooting was finished in Utah, the production company had 60 tons of radioactive dirt shipped to Hollywood so filming could be finished on sound stages. Whatever became of this dirt is unknown; it’s probably been used as filler in a back-lot by now.

A dress that Susan Hayward wore onset was recently analyzed and found to have radioactive dust particles.

Be Afraid. Be very, very afraid.

[Dave (imported)]

There are placed in the southwestern deserts that are marked as "government" and "Off Limits" because of the fallout still there from the nuclear tests.

That's for real if you ever go jeep hiking and see signs marking the place as forbidden.

[gareth19 (imported)]

Just about a week ago, I have seen two guys here, turning a RID-1 smoke sensor in their hands. That, and a screwdriver (my first thought was - if they disassemble that, I do not want to be near it). The sensor contains two Pu²³⁹ sources. This thing is relatively safe, while assembled (just do not sleep, hugging it ), but it is enough to cover few square meters in a material that would "glow in the dark", as Moi speaks.

There are other things, that usually are thought to be safe like radioactive switches (they had radium activated luminophore), but those are not produced since early 1970s. Can be still found though.

Plutonium is highly toxic. I doubt that anyone would use it as an ionization source for a smoke detector. In the US all models that I am familiar with use americium. Your metal detector uses californium as a source.