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POV and (worse) unencyclopedic

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This page has crept into Wikipedia for the most part without sources and without discussion (witness this is the first entry on the discussion page!!). It is a mishmash of rumour and exaggeration with the occasional fact almost buried under a pile of invective and emotion.

Specifically this page represents an anti-nuclear POV. It involves the usual confounding of nuclear power and nuclear weapons incidents, with a few randoms, throwing up any incident no matter how minor. A simple example is the first (X-ray) incident, which is not "nuclear" at all, but is recounted for scary effect.

I am marking it disputed and will be back to clean it up or propose it for deletion, unless the original authors care to start giving the page proper focus and especially proper sources for the more obscure pieces (the majority) that are on here.

Joffan 03:44, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This article was forked from List of nuclear accidents. See Talk:List of nuclear accidents for older discussions. --Carnildo 07:19, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The article definitley needs pruning. The 1904 entry is based on an ignorant equation of "radiation" and "nuclear". Although a list of nuclear accidents lends itself naturally to the appearance of anti-nuclear POV, I would argue against deletion of the entire article. It would be appropriate to excise all unsourced and irrelevant entries.--DocS 13:46, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I checked the precursor talk, thanks for the link Carnildo. It seems that Bcrowell was making much the same observations as I was, that the list is vague in scope and includes many entries that are not accidents. After the fork it also includes many entries that are arguably not civilian either. It may still include accidents that are merely proximate to nuclear material, which really doesn't make them nuclear, although the totally off-topic X-ray entry has gone, thanks DocS.

It is important that articles are focussed, otherwise they are not informative. A jumble of this kind is not information, it's just data, and not very reliable data at that. Witness the fact that, irritated as I am by this entry, I still haven't read it all through.

Joffan 17:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the best first step is to generate a sensible definition of what constitutes a "nuclear accident". I would propose criteria along the lines of:
1) There must be documented and substantial property damage, illness/injuries/fatalities or contamination (this would exclude, for example, spills of nonradioactive heavy water or near-accidents such as Salem 1983).
2) The damage must be related directly to nuclear operations (e.g. the Mihama 2004 incident was a secondary-side, non-radioactive steam accident - not nuclear).
These two criteria alone would cut away a lot of non-relevant entries.
--DocS 19:02, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As to article focus, maybe this list (once its problems are corrected) should ultimately become an appendix to, or subsection of, a more general discussion on civilian nuclear accidents/safety. --DocS 19:07, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding entries removed as "unsourced": I am removing entries that are not supported by direct references, linked wiki articles or the "Reference" resources at the end of this article. Exceptions are significant incidents (TMI, Chernobyl), which will instead be revised with appropriate sources. --DocS 16:45, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to try again on finding a reference for the Lucens reactor meltdown. The reference.com article you've linked to is a Wikipedia mirror. --Carnildo 18:28, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. Thanks, good catch.--DocS 19:04, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I removed Windscale as "not civilian" as its primary function as of 1957 was as a source of Pu for nuclear weapons. --DocS 19:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have made some changes to the Windscale entry, including removing a dead link, adding a source and filling in details on the casualty projections. I would still propose moving the entry to the list of military nuclear accidents. --DocS 19:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Windscale's a tossup as to where it should be listed. It was a civilian project operated by the government to produce plutonium for military purposes. --Carnildo 20:54, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am moving Windscale to Military. It's sole purpose was plutonium for bombs. pstudier 23:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Windscale's sole purpose was military. Chernobyl however was both, it produced power for consumption, but also plutonium for nuclear weapons. As such it was not administered by the ministry looking after power plants, as it was one of the plants in the interest of the Soviet military. (I suppose this comment should be in the military talk page) Ottawakismet (talk) 18:15, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Now revised and objective?

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The specifics that originally caused the article to be marked as anti-nuclear POV appear have now been resolved. Is the article ready for marking as neutral POV now? --Oscarthecat 07:41, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Although there are still a few marginal entries (e.g. Tsuruga 1981, in which the "accident" consists of a short-term violation of company exposure policy), I think the padding has been largely excised, and the POV language is minimal. I have no objection to the NPOV tag being removed. --DocS 04:11, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and done. Joffan 18:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, and huge kudos to you DocS for your continued work on this. I see you're taking on the corresponding military list! Joffan 18:44, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest a separate page entitled Nuclear Incidents. Several of these 'accidents' are officially categorised as 'incidents' under the International Nuclear Event Scale JeremyGordon 13:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Marginal Entries

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Marginal and misleading entry removed (neither of the sources supported the claim in the entry that the leak had contaminated the river); the contamination was on-site and at levels below EPA safe drinking standards (confirmed by NRC). The other new entry (Haddam 2005) is also marginal, and contained factual errors, but has been left in place (with editing) pending more detalied findings.

It takes a fair bit of work to research and correct shoddy entries. Please research thoroughly (and consider the criteria at the top of the article) before adding to the article. --DocS 22:59, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mixed tense writing

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Is there a specific reason all list entries in this article begin with a present-tense statement? We are dealing with the *past* here, and in many cases the following sentence switches to past tense. I feel each opening verb ought to be changed to past tense to maintain proper grammar and style.

Grammar and Vocabulary

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Could someone please have a look at my entry about the kytschym-catastrophe? I'm not a native English-speaker and I don't want to leave an article with mistakes. Thanks

And maybe it might be useful to oversee other entries as well...

Editing criteria

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The last two entires for the 2000 section seem to fail the criteria listed at the top, the entries read as follows

July 25, 2006 – An electrical fault prompted shut down of the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, Sweden. Although there was no damage to the reactor, no radioactive release and no adverse health consequences, the incident highlighted potentially hazardous flaws in the site's reactor shutdown procedures. [34](in Swedish)[35](in Swedish)[36]

November 2005 -- Tritium contamination of groundwater was discovered at Exelon's Braidwood station.[37] Later, in March, 2006, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announced that they were filing a lawsuit against Exelon because of six such leaks, demanding that the utility provide substitute water supplies to residents although no well outside company property shows levels that exceed drinking water standards. The lawsuit is a class-action suit representing two communities roughly two miles away from the plant and not including the closest community to the plant.[1][2] According to the NRC, "The inspection determined that public health and safety has not been adversely affected and the dose consequence to the public that can be attributed to current onsite conditions is negligible with respect to NRC regulatory limits." However, the chairman of the NRC, said, "They're going to have to fix it."

The first is a potential accident with no health, equipment or radioactive damage to speak of. The second is a case that made headlines and was a genuine accident, however nobody suffered health consequences and the low level contamination was well under NRC limits. There was no health damage, no property damage and radiation releases were not substantial, which are listed as criteria for inclusion.

The Mihama Incident

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I notice some reverts going back and fourth regarding the Mihama steam accident. Firstly, I think "See Also" is not the proper place for this. Secondly, it is notable and it does have a place in this series of articles. Granted, such a list could never be comprehensive, as there are LOTS of those kinds of accidents (I mean come on, someone could just drop a hammer on their toe), just like any other industry in the world. But as long as the purpose of the list is clear, I see no problem.

My suggestion is that we should have a list of nuclear industry accidents that were significant blotches on the safety record, but did not involve a release (or a potential release) of radioactivity. I would just presume put such a list in this article, separate from the other events. What does everyone else think? -Theanphibian (talkcontribs) 20:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kariwa nuclear power plant entry

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The event at Kariwa was caused by a natural disaster, not really falling under the area of "accident" which implies human involvement and some level of screwing up. Should this entry be removed?Worloq 05:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It should be kept if there was leak of radiation, regardless of the ultimate cause. — Omegatron 15:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The leak needs to result in substantial contamination to warrant inclusion on the list. Spilling a drop of gasoline while filling your car is technically a "petroleum spill" but it would be ludicrous to include it within a "list of petrochemical accidents". In the case of Kariwa, the leak was 1/1,000,000,000th of the legal limit spilled into the single largest body of water on the planet. It may technically be a leak, but it is not significant enough to be included on the list. Nailedtooth 16:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They leaked 1200 liters of spent fuel storage cooling water into the ocean. You are saying they could legally leak 1200 billion cubic meters into the ocean? Im wondering why they dont just store the spent fuel in the ocean. You seem the have a quick hand of declassifying incidents. Maybe discuss it a bit first. The fire in Krümmel (which you pruned) caused problems in the reactor core, with the scram. Arguably this falls under the category of the article. -- 217.64.242.138 10:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The most environmentally unfriendly part of spent fuel storage is the waste heat from the spent fuel not radiation. That's why the leak was so far below the legal limit for radiation. Also, I think you mean 1.2 billion cubic meters, since there's a thousand liters in a cubic meter of water.
The Krummel incident was a transformer fire. The reactor scrammed on backups when the fire caused electrical faults in the main systems; the reactor ultimately worked as designed. The only substantial property damage was the destroyed transformer and whatever the fire damaged directly. Neither the reactor core nor any fuel elements were damaged; there was no damage "related directly to nuclear material". This makes the incident only proximal to a nuclear plant. Note that the criteria specifically exclude such events as they could happen regardless of the presence or absence of nuclear material. There were no substantial health effects due to radiation or nuclear materials and no detectable nuclear contamination. The incident fails under both the first and second criteria.
I am willing to discuss things where there is some kind of ambiguity. See my post below. Incidents that clearly fail the criteria never should have been included in the first place. Nailedtooth 21:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Detailed explanation of Aug 22 edit

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Removed entries:

  • January 25, 1982 – Ginna plant -- The links provided were dead or did not support this entry's inclusion on the list.
  • February 15, 2000 - Indian Point -- No health effects, no substantial contamination, no substantial property damage. Removed.

Other changes:

  • Provided more information on "April 10, 2003 – Paks"

Also, I'd like discussion on these incidents to decide keep/remove:

  • May 1, 1969 - Ågesta -- Coolant leak that shorted some control pannels. Reactor shut down successfully anyway. This dosent sound like 'substantial ... property damage or contamination" to me. No links for this entry are provided.
  • March 1981 - Tsuruga -- Company exposure limits were breached, but for how long since this would need to lead to "substanial health effects"? The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission allows up to 50mSv per year for nuclear workers.
  • December 17, 1987 - Biblis -- I can't find any really specific information on this incident. The plants wiki page says it was a leak of coolant with no heath effects, property damage or signifigant contamination.
  • November 2005 - Braidwood -- The only criteria this could qualify under is 'signifigant contamination'. However, there isnt any signifigant contamination by any standards away from the plant (also, drinking water standards vary extremely from place to place) and nobody's going to be drinking water from test wells near the plant anyway. No cleanup is warrented and the only action being taken is to prevent further release. The whole issue seems kind of moot.

Nailedtooth 03:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given that it has been a month without reply I am removing Agesta 1969 and Biblis 1987 from the list. Both seem to be coolant leaks that did not result in any substantial contamination, health effects or property damage. Nailedtooth 05:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the scope of the article

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The article says now the following

On listing civilian nuclear accidents, the following criteria have been followed:
  1. There must be well-attested and substantial health damage, property damage or contamination.
  2. The damage must be related directly to radioactive material, not merely (for example) at a nuclear power plant.
  3. To qualify as "civilian", the nuclear operation/material must be principally for non-military purposes.
  4. The event should involve fissile material, fission or a reactor.

I'm wondering, I think major social unrest following an accident might also be an argument. The biggest problem NPP's are facing is the social (un)acceptance, which is being fed by accidents. Even if there are none of 1-4 impacts, any incident in a NPP, causes a strom of concerns. As it might also have resulted in 1-4 impacts. To dismiss social concerns, the biggest argument in the nuclear debate, as non relevant seems non-npov to me. -- 217.64.242.138 10:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The size or extent of the public reaction to any nuclear incident - included in this list or not - is not neccissaraly related to the severity of the incident. The current criteria differentiate between incidents that cause severe or permanent harm and those that do not. Health damage, property damage and contamination are all tangible and quantifiable effects, public reaction is intangible and unquantifiable by any practical means. Social concern, while relevant to the debate about nuclear technology, is not a reliable criterion by which to classify nuclear accidents.
Exclusion of social concerns does not show a POV problem, it shows the article has a consistent and well defined scope.
Nailedtooth 17:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Standardized entry format

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I think it would be beneficial if the entries were changed into a standardized format. Right now all the information in the entries except for the date is in different places depending on the specific entry. A table would be too rigid I think as the text format seems to be working well even without standardization. Proposed format:

Day Month, Year - INES level - location - Type(s) of accident
  • Description of the accident and related information. Description of the significant health effects, property damage or contamination that occurred. Description of response to the accident.

For example

30 September, 1999 - INES Level 4 - Tokaimura, Japan - Accidental Criticality
  • Workers put uranyl nitrate solution containing about 16.6 kg of uranium, which exceeded the critical mass, into a precipitation tank. The tank was not designed to dissolve this type of solution and was not configured to prevent eventual criticality. Three workers were exposed to neutron radiation in excess of the allowable limit. Two of these workers died. 116 other workers were exposed to over 1 mSv though not in excess of the allowable limit.

Additions? Subtractions? Substitutions? etc? Nailedtooth 21:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Too many disaster pages

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Does anybody else think that there is a better way to quantify all the disasters/ tragedies in Earth's history. I think there needs to be like one huge trunk section, or maybe even a whole portal, and all articles would stem off from that. There are so many pages that represent the information in a slitely different perspective, and the biggest problem is that they do not share a high level of consistency with their facts!! It's hard to quantify the historical significance of disasters with the jumble of related information that we currently have.

If you have any ideas on how best to arrange it, please put your ideas, uh... idk where to put them. Here I guess? I'm sorry I have much to learn. Rallen7753 17:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

change of criteria

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I rewrote the criteria so that they are not criteria, but describing the attributes of the listed accident. I aslo want to posose the following

  • The damage is related directly to radioactive material, not merely (for example) at a nuclear power plant.

into

  • The damage is related directly to radioactive material, or crucial safety systems.

The latter part of the sentence should be deleted and only on the talk page, but I thought that needs some discussion. But beyond, I think that accidents which impair crucial safety systems - eg Forsmark back-up power not starting, opening the way to a meltdown, INES 2 - also an 'encyclopedic' civilian nuclear accident. -- Eiland (talk) 11:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use the discussion page before making major changes.
As for "opening the way to a meltdown": This page is for events that have happened, not for speculation about what might happen. Furthermore, please keep entries as a neutral descriptions of events. This article should neither laud nor demonize civilian nuclear power. Nailedtooth (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ordering from recent event to last events is IMHO no major change. And could you explain a bit more why you removed the pre-1950 issues? -- Eiland (talk) 15:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All the other nuclear events lists are in chronological order earliest - latest. There's no real reason to change it either. Nailedtooth (talk) 22:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is, as the recent radiological accidents are way more relevant then the historical ones :) -- Eiland (talk) 15:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's a form of systematic bias called recentism and it is against Wikipedia policy. Nailedtooth (talk) 21:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That would be deleting the 1950 disasters you mean? Now, and far into the fture, people will alwazs be more interested in recent nuclear accidents then in 50 year old ones. But the fifty year old ones are still there, just more below. Theres nothing recentistic about that. -- Eiland (talk) 07:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The deletion of the 1950s was an error caused in part by the need to revert your pointless edits. I restored the 1950s when it was pointed out, but you have ignored this. The reasons you have stated for inverting the order of the entries are exactly what recentism is. Recent events are not more important than earlier ones. The fact that some people may be more interested in recent events is irrelevant.
Furthermore, your edits to the criteria require far more discussion than you have given the subject. Nailedtooth (talk) 16:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

STOP

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This article has been mangled by the edit warring over the last few days. Without assigning blame, this is not an acceptable outcome. Multiple parties committed edit warring over the article. Please, everyone - stop, talk about it on the talk page here (remember assume good faith) and let me and others fix the contents. Work to find a common consensus agreement on what order the list should be in. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to revert any attempts to change the criteria under which material may be added to this page. What was there was put up to prevent people from adding frivolous garbage that has nothing to do with a nuclear accident. Jtrainor (talk) 04:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Asco, Spain

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Now that it has been restored, I propose removing the 2007 Asco, Spain event because it does not meet the required criteria for substantial contamination, health effects or property damage. As stated by the CNS (Spanish Commision for Nuclear Safety), the leak was well below the legal limit for release[1]. In addition the total amount of material released was tiny. One gram of radium-226 is equal to 37 giga-becquerels, so a leak of 235,000bq is only equivalent to 6 micrograms of radium-226. Detectable, but not significant.Nailedtooth (talk) 21:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree. Legal limits are to a certain extent arbitrarily. It was not Radium but Cobalt-60 and manganese-54, which was released. As the material spread over an area of 60 km, Im almost sure that not all material was detected. Further more It added that total radioactivity detected was about 235,000 becquerels (Bq), or below a legal limit of 320,000 Bq for radioactivity from cobalt-60 ingested by a member of the public. The detected amount is 2/3rd of that, and there is no evidence on how conclusive the searches were, besides that 1,500 people had to be investigated, so there was considerable concern. 60 Km, 1,500 people possibly contaminated, in my book this is "well attested contamination". -- Eiland (talk) 22:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Legal limits are arbitrary; they usually err on the low side, as radioactivity scares the public. According to Background radiation#Radiation_inside_the_human_body, the average person has 4000 decays of 40K a second=4,000 Becquerel. Those 1,500 people are carrying around 6 MBq of 40K. The limit of 320,000 Bq is ingested by a member of the public; I don't see that as helping your case, as it means that there's so little radioactivity that one person could consume it all and still be fine. I have lots of poisons around the house that are used in much higher quantities than would be safe for one human to directly consume. I understand that the public is more interested in nuclear incidents than ordinary industrial incidents, but stuff that would pass a chemical-equivalent INES level 2 happen on a daily basis in workplaces around the world, so that level fundamentally isn't notable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to Ascó Nuclear Power Plant and its references, 84.95 million becq was estimated to be released. Do you have a source saying that legal radioactivitely limits err on the low side due to public concern? With the same logic you can say they tend to be high, as it makes it easier to appease people. -- Eiland (talk) 10:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It may be there's a difference between what was released inside the plant and what was detected outside in the surrounding community. 87Mbq is still only equivalent to 2mg of radium-226, which is equivalent to 40micrograms of cobalt-60. That's a detectable ammount, but still not a 'substantial' amount of contamination. To put it in prespective, Chernobyl released the equivalent of 18,000 kg of radium-226 and Three Mile Island 20 grams of radium-226. The high estimate for Asco is four orders of magnitude lower than TMI. Asco just doens't meet the criteria for inclusion.
The safe dosage estimates are made by doctors and physicists and always err on the side of caution, which means they're set deliberately low. Nailedtooth (talk) 14:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to repeat myself, but if the radioactive material spread over 60 km, and 1500 people had to be checked for contamination, I find this well attested and substantial contamination. There is no minimum contamination dose in the list of criteria, and only few accidents in the list mention doses, so we don't need to solve that issue here. -- Eiland (talk) 11:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The contamination is well attested, no doubt there, but pointing out the area of contamination is not helping your case. Since the minuscule dose was spread over such a large area that makes is less substantial than if it had been concentrated in a single spot. The area of contamination means there's only the equivalent of 650 nanograms of cobalt-60 per square kilometer. A person would have to consume all the radioactive material covering in six hectares to receive the legal dose limit. It now seems that it's just not possible for anyone to have actually been harmed by this release. This incident produced no substantial contamination.Nailedtooth (talk) 14:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There has been contamination found as far as 60km away from the site. This does not mean that some divine entity collected all radioactive material released and spread it neatly out over 11304 km2. Ah, approximately 1,000 particles have been found near the plant. Ingesting more then 3 released particles would be beyond the limit. -- Eiland (talk) 07:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The only way someone could injest the legal limit from three partiles is if each was 106,666bq, in which case there would only be 750 particles in a total release of 84Mbq. If there were only 750 particles then there would be only about 0.06 particle per square kilometer. If 1000 were found near the plant and more were found in the area 60km from the plant then there's no way any given particle contains a substantial amount of contamination. No matter how you cut it, there's no way this is a significant release.Nailedtooth (talk) 14:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to handle countries with interior divisions?

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An editor has brought up the question of whether incidents in the United Kingdom should be listed as happening there or in one of its historic interior divisions (England, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland). I think the larger encompassing country should be listed if it's a choice between the two, or the country should be listed as well as the interior division. Obviously, this would apply to listings for the United States and Canada as well.

Are there Wikipedia guidelines on this? Nailedtooth (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it generalizes well. We name states with the United States because (a) it's not unambiguous otherwise, (b) it's standard practice and (c) it's helpful for our readers. I believe the same holds true for Canada. OTOH, I've never seen province names with French cities, and don't expect that they'd be useful. The UK is in an unusual situation where you could actually use England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales without United Kingdom without a problem. (You might make that argument about the US, but there's a lot more states and they're a lot less politically independent.) But yes, hopefully there are more general guidelines about this.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that the interior names of the UK could be used without a problem. People outside the British Isles tend to be very, very foggy about what names refer to what parts. Great Britian, England and Britian are all used to refer to the United Kingdom when the first doesn't include N.Ireland, the second is only one part of Britian and the third is just another name for the first. I don't want to simply sound contrary, but if anything, using the interior names instead of the United Kingdom will perpetuate these misconceptions, which is the opposite of what we're trying to do. That's why I suggested using the country name as well as the interior name. Nailedtooth (talk) 03:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

David Hahn

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Would David Hahn's fast breeder reactor technically qualify for this list?

The list requires 4 points. 2, 3 & 4 are clearly covered. Point 1 is most likely covered because EPA deemed his back yard a Superfund sight for clean up. So there was property damage/contamination, but would it be classified as substantial?

Djsolie (talk) 21:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think David Hahn's experimentation can be accurately described as an accident. He was negligent and irradiated himself, but it wasn't an accident per se. Nailedtooth (talk) 00:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal

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I propose that the List of civilian nuclear accidents and the List of military nuclear accidents to be merged into List of nuclear accidents, as a separation between military and civilian is, at best, arbitrary. In the early days, military and civilian use were totally overlapping; Calder Hall was built for weapons-plutonium production, but hey, why not use the waste heat for power generation? As a result, now the Windscale fire is not listed in the civilian nuclear incidents, although anyone would think that Sellafield, the site of Windscale, now largely being associated with nuclear power would be civilian. And then the second biggest accident ever is not on the civilian list! And the recent uranium leaks in France at Socatri in France would surely be seen as 'civilian', whereas it is highly likely that the Tricastin site did Dual Use, although the French of course are weary to give out details on their Force de frappe -- eiland (talk) 08:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Calling the difference between civilian and military nuclear accidents arbitrary is laughable. The vast majority of entries on each lists could never be placed on the other because they are single-use or their dual use nature is insignificant or irrelevant. In any case, if a dual use facility suffered an accident worthy of both lists then it should simply be placed on both lists and a note made in the entry. The fact that there were more dual use facilities in the early days than now is no reason to merge ongoing lists that contain mostly single use incidents. Also, just because someone thinks a plant is likely to be dual use that doesn't mean it is. Listing a plant as dual use in the absence of solid confirming evidence would be the very definition of arbitrary.
Of course the Windscale fire isn't listed in 'civilian' because the reactor that burned at Windscale was used solely for plutonium production for nuclear bombs and the waste heat was vented, not used for electrical production. If 'everyone' thinks the Windscale fire was a civlian incident then 'everyone' is utterly wrong. The purpose of the list isn't to mirror what 'everyone' thinks, it's to list significant civilian nuclear accidents. Nailedtooth (talk) 13:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The military and civilian sectors are quite different. Paul Studier (talk) 00:56, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. In the U.S., the civilian and military operations are kept strictly separate. I also haven't seen indication that in Western Europe reprocessed civilian spent nuclear fuel has been used for nuclear weapons. The Japanese don't even have nuclear weapons despite a very large nuclear program. Even India is now agreeing to separate its civilian and military activities. Simesa (talk) 09:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. List is long enough and specific enough. Tedder (talk) 02:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree.. What is *really* laughable is the concept that military operations take place in a different universe from the one inhabited by civilians. There is only one living earth environment or biosphere, only five-miles thin, and it is very interconnected (water cycle, carbon cycle, calcium cycle, wind, ocean currents, etc., you name it). Consequently, the fallout from tests and accidents, over time, spreads out over the whole population, and given enough time even crosses from one hemisphere to the other, and escapes even the best containments. Many half-lives are so long that everyone, whether military or civilian gets to breathe and eat this stuff, and more so our descendants if we don't ban nuclear materials for weapons and power until such time as it can be done leaving only inert (non radioactive) products. Therefore a single list will allow better focus on, and easier assessment of, the environmental impact and potential risk to the environment and human lives. Admittedly some populations are impacted differently, such as the former inhabitants of the Bikini Atol, the unfortunates who stared from afar into the nuclear fires of Chernobyl, and the poor soldier "guinea-pigs" who were used to test if modern soldiers could be made "atomic-proof", or the unfortunate civilian population of Vieques, Puerto Rico, who have a (albeit small) diet of depleted military uranium. Indeed, if the two lists are not made into one, I have a mind to make and publish my own list elsewhere...now there's democracy in action! Please, everyone who makes a specialty of nuclear-related accidents of any kind, to wake up and face the music, as the population of Japan is having to do daily now. (March 2011) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.176.184.100 (talk) 05:37, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There is some common infrastructure between military and civilian, and commonality in medical uses. But in general, civilian operations are out in the open, and military operations are subject to secrecy. Civilian power operations use slightly enriched uranium for large-scale power generation, and the military uses highly enriched uranium for small-scale power generation. And of course, nuclear weapons are completely under the control of the military. Obankston (talk) 18:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we all together better just delete the military list then, as "Listing a plant as dual use in the absence of solid confirming evidence would be the very definition of arbitrary." according to (Nailedtooth, and Obankton says the military veils in secrecy. So its probably worse to have an incomplete list, major nuclear accidents kept well under the lid, then no list at all. -- eiland (talk) 08:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Radiation accidents

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Where do the radiatioin accidents go, like the Fleurus accident (Ines 3), the previous one there in 2006, Ines 4, - or the Goiânia accident, to name a few? -- eiland (talk) 16:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of civilian radiation accidents. Nailedtooth (talk) 16:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
rrright. I think its time for a Nuclear accidents template, but I'm not apt for designing such things. --eiland (talk) 23:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Three Mile Island infant Mortality rates

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This page I found seems to suggest there were over 200 child deaths as result of three mile island why is this not paid attention too. Can someone explain why this is? Are only one side of the argument allowed to be made? http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO14.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.124.156 (talk) 14:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't had time to read it all but the page you link to seems to be little more than a collection of anecdotes about health problems near the TMI plant with correlational statistics thrown in once in a while. It's really not useful as a source because anecdotes are not useful data and correlation does not equal causation. Is there a section of that page you were referring to more specifically?Nailedtooth (talk) 15:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Windscale 1957 was for weapons ie military

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If we must keep Windscale 1957 in this 'civilian' list surely we should say it operated to produce nuclear weapons materials ? Rod57 (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chernobyl, 1986

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I've read up (and heard) quite a few things on Chernobyl catastrophe having more than curiousity, given that I live in Kiev and remember that day well. When happening to mention a "human error" on one specialist forum regarding Chernobyl, I was suggested to "go read Dyatlov", which was subsequently done.

His memoires (in Russian) are merging very well with what I remember, and he tells that there was NO difference in outcome with any source of emergency shutdown -- be it manual (which was executed) or automatic, the source of the problem was in "enhanced" control rods that were given lower-absorbing addons "for economical reasons". When the rods would be almost fully up and then displace water while going down, for some period of time absorption would go DOWN instead of increasing -- thus the reactor went overcritical while being shut down.

For the record, the height of RBMK-1000 active zone is roughly 7 meters, and the travel time for rods was about 20 seconds (the slow neutron fission delay is seconds to tens of seconds, to put it in perspective). So those who were actually in charge for designing such a beast did their best to put the blame on those who operated it. And there were several similar states, with Leningrad nuclear power plant almost reaching the same state in 1975. --Gvy (talk) 13:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Criteria suggestion

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Since, by the definition of the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), anything from level 1 to level 3 is considered an incident, shouldn't these events be moved to the incidents page? In my opinion the scope of the article should include the INES criteria of an incident and an accident too. By my count there are 4 level 3 and 3 level 2 events on this list. Sgv 6618 (talk) 23:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds reasonable. --Gvy (talk) 12:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to rekindle the discussion, as the current criteria is self-contradictory: The title of the article is "List of civilian nuclear accidents", so it should contain only nuclear accidents, as opposed to nuclear incidents. The first criteria states "notably sever accidents [...] INES rating 2 or higher", which is self-contradictory: events with INES rating 2 and 3 are by definition not accidents. Events with INSE rating of 4 or 5 are accidents but not severe accidents. According to this criterion there should only be 3 events in the list.
I suggest changing the first criteria to "an accident [...] INES rating 4 or higher"
As an aside: this article has lead to no end of confusion in my class nuclear engineering students – it would be nice to finally fix it. I thought I should discuss the before editing. Patrick A Burr (talk) 01:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To underscore my point, there have been hundreds of civilian INES 2 events. In the last year alone there have been 13. So if we stick to the current criteria, we are failing quite spectacularly with this list article. Patrick A Burr (talk) 01:13, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Chalk River incident rated too high

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There is no way the incident in Chalk River was a level 5. It was a 4 at max.

I suggest that whoever put the CR incident in do some more research.

Source: I work at Chalk River Labs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.252.152.202 (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fukushima II - Source does not support level 7

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The citation that Fukushima II ('Dai-ini') is INES level 7 speaks solely about Fukushima I (Dai-ichi). Given that the text about Fukushima II makes no mention of any radiation release from that site, let alone a large-scale release with widespread and enduring impact, calling it level 7 is clearly erroneous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.213.37.202 (talk) 06:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring over Tricastin leak

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This needs to stop, now. I will protect the article if it continues.

People are welcome to discuss this in a manner other than edit warring the article content. The talk page here is appropriate.

I would like to point out that there seems to be some confusion over the word "Fissile" in play. The participation of uranium in the accident does not mean that it is automatically "fissile". That word means "capable of sustaining a nuclear fission reaction". One atom of Uranium is not fissile; all the uranium in the oceans of the world (about 4 billion tons, 3.3 parts per billion in the water, by mass) is not fissile, either. Fissile requires enrichment and solution conditions which can sustain a reaction.

I do not know if the Tricastin accident was or was not fissile at the time it leaked (i.e., if pooled in a concentrated manner, could it have sustained a reaction). The news article used in reference does not say either way. One could perhaps find an IAEA or French nuclear agency report that had the details.

It's unambiguously a radioactive material incident, but someone does need to justify it being fissile, with reference sources that either say so or provide enough technical detail to justify a potential criticality.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The "confusion over the word "Fissile" in play" as applied to this article lies with you and the user who is war editing the article (and who has a long history of attempting to remove other seemingly valid incidents). The scope of this article states incidents should "involve fissile material" - it does not say "should involve fissile material in a form or concentration that is capable of sustaining nuclear fission". If that were the criteria, virtually every nuclear incident would be inadmissible - including many already on this list.
The IAEA issues INES warnings for nuclear incidents because they reach a significant severity. They issued one for Tricastin. By your logic, that because there is massively dilute uranium in the oceans, the IAEA would issue an INES warning because the oceans exist. But they do not. That should offer a huge clue.
Do you really think the French would have "...banned the drinking of water, fishing and consumption of fish in three rivers and three ponds. Swimming and water sports were also forbidden as was irrigation of crops with the water containing the toxic material." if ocean water had leaked? That reasoning is nonsensical.
Re. war editing: it should be noted that the other user has a long history of war editing this and other nuclear articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nailedtooth#STOP
The Tricastin nuclear reactor incident involved significant release of a "fissile material" which resulted in a "well-attested and substantial ... contamination" which prompted an INES event. It therefore clearly complies with the scope of the article. Please reinstate the edit. AzureAnt (talk) 11:42, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I must agree with AzureAnt that this article qualifies for inclusion on this page. I don't agree with the argument that INES Level 1 classification itself is sufficient because of the large number of those incidents every year (from the UK's Guardian newspaper article on the incident, "The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006."[1]); but, given that this particular incident contaminated about 100 staff at Tricastin's nuclear facility and also resulted in public warnings and wide scale testing of ground water, this incident is notable in its scale and should be included on this page. Christopher Rath (talk) 12:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I consider Nailedtooth's behaviour to be unacceptable: simply deleting content without providing any justification is not behaviour that anyone on WP should defend. We have too many deletionists on WP and their activities need to be discouraged. Christopher Rath (talk) 12:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, AzureAnt, the word "fissile" already includes the criteria that it should be "in a form or concentration that is capable of sustaining nuclear fission". If a material cannot sustain a chain reaction of nuclear fission, it is not fissile. What was leaked was uranium dissolved in water, not just uranium, not just water, but uranium dissolved in water. The context of the material matters. Uranium glass contains enough uranium that it is measurably (though not dangerously) radioactive, however, it would be ludicrous to call it a nuclear leak if you were to drop your grandmothers pretty green dishes. In the exact same way, the concentration uranium in the water was far too low to sustain a chain reaction of nuclear fission and thus the leaked material (uranium dissolved in water) is not fissile.
The IAEA issues INES levels for all notable accidents at nuclear plants. Level 1 is known as "anomaly". It means, roughly, "something happened that was not supposed to happen but wasn't particularly dangerous". These relatively innocuous accidents are given INES levels out of caution, the same caution that resulted in the banning of swimming/drinking/irrigating with water's nearby the leak. The fact that the leak of uranium dissolved in water was given an INES level, and the drinking/swimming/irrigation bans were put in place is not evidence that the material leaked was fissile, it is evidence that the nuclear regulatory bodies established in France are working.
The rest of your post is irrational nonsense and attempted character assassination. All of which have no place in a rational discussion. Nailedtooth (talk) 14:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for providing the explanation; which makes sense to me. That said, if I apply this definition of fissile to the other incidents in this article, I have difficulty justifying why they are present.
For example, "October 10, 1957 - INES Level 5 - Windscale, Cumbria, Great Britain - Core fire" -- Despite its Level 5 categorisation, this incident did not involve the release of fissile material in the manner that you have explained as your objection to adding the leak we are discussing. So, why are we not also removing the Windscale event from the article? Christopher Rath (talk) 15:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Windscale was the core of a reactor, and reactor cores are by definition fissile (capable of sustaining reactions). The material was involved, though fuel itself may not have leaked. That seems to be enough based on the criteria and other incidents listed here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Read Nailedtooth's post, below, of 17:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC). If you apply his dilution arguement to the Windscale event then you are only able to conclude that the Windscale event does not belong in this article; since the radioactive material was too dilute to produce a chain reaction. We need a single standard for inclusion of events in this article, and as AzureAnt has pointed out, at the moment there is a double standard in play. We must either remove all of the events where the radioactive material was of insufficient concentration to produce a reaction, or we must include all such events. Christopher Rath (talk) 17:58, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The involvement of fissile material is not the only standard. Criteria 4 states there must be "fissile material or a reactor". The Windscale qualifies (for the military page) because it directly involves a reactor, a reactor being what caught fire. The dilution of the released contamination at Windscale is irrelevant because it would qualify for the military page even without it. The Tricastin leak does not involve a reactor, and the material leaked (uranium dissolved in water) is not fissile so it fails on criteria 4.Nailedtooth (talk) 18:28, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, Nailedtooth, the definition for fissile material is clear: "a fissile material is one that is capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission." Uranium is capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission and is therefore a fissile material. Again: the scope of this article is for a fissile material.
You are attempting to restrict the scope of this article by including an unwritten clause that the material must be "in a form or concentration that is capable of sustaining nuclear fission" in an attempt to exclude as many nuclear accidents as you can. You have clearly been doing this for several years and repeatedly war editing to further your agenda. In fact, by the definition you want to impose, almost every nuclear accident would not meet your arbitrary criteria, which is one way of making it appear as though there have been few nuclear accidents around the world.
If you wish to change the scope of this article to only include fissile materials that are ""in a form or concentration that is capable of sustaining nuclear fission", that is another debate and you are free to start a discussion but it does not give you licence to unilaterally censor this article on that basis.
The Tricastin incident fits the scope of this article and is therefore eligible for inclusion. AzureAnt (talk) 16:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
AzureAnt - The definition of the word "fissile" includes "in a form or concentration that is capable of sustaining nuclear fission". That's the problem and the point. My Fiestaware plates aren't fissile; the ocean with 3.3 ppb Uranium dissolved in it isn't fissile; the ground upon which I sit, with a few ppb U in it, is not fissile. Fissile as a word implies a concentration and enrichment which can sustain fission reactions.
Uranium 235 is a "fissile isotope" in that for some concentrations and enrichments it can sustain fission reactions, but there's a difference between that and any presence of Uranium is a fissile incident.
This is a significant point of nuclear physics. It's not a little definitions problem. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have ignored what I have written and repeated what I have already shown to be clearly flawed logic. Again: fissile - "...a fissile material is one that is capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission." Uranium is a fissile material. Note the word material. The scope of this article is that an "event should involve fissile material". It does not say it must be in a form or concentration that would sustain nuclear fission. By the definition you are now trying to impose, virtually all nuclear incidents - and many already listed on this page - would not be admissible.
Now you're talking about dinner plates?! Same nonsense logic as your oceans argument. Does the IAEA issue INES events for dinner plates? Do dinner plates result in: "Officials banned the drinking of water, fishing and consumption of fish in three rivers and three ponds. Swimming and water sports were also forbidden as was irrigation of crops with the water containing the toxic material."? I'm afraid you're writing this nonsense to try and justify an argument that you have no better justification for.
Unless you are going to redefine the scope of the article to only allow incidences that include fissile material that is "in a form or concentration that is capable of sustaining nuclear fission" then the Tricastin event is admissible and must be included. Otherwise you should begin a discussion to change the scope of this article and then remove almost every incident from it. AzureAnt (talk) 15:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is an essential difference between "uranium" and "uranium dissolved in water", because what was leaked was the latter, rather than the former. For a material to be capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission - for the material to be fissile - there has to be at or above a certain chance of neutron capture that will lead to a fission producing two or more neutrons also capable of causing fission. When a base material of which a fraction may be fissile - say uranium - becomes diluted by another - say water - the change of that neutron capture and the resulting other neutrons decreases. This dilution changes the behavior of the material and thus the dilution cannot be ignored. While the material - uranium dissolved in water - is at first still fissile, when the dilution becomes too great the chance of neutron capture falls below the level needed to sustain a chain reaction and the mixture stops being fissile; the mixture stops being capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fusion. This is what was leaked: a mixture incapable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fusion. The material leaked was not fissile. The fact that the uranium would be fissile had it been more concentrated is not relevant because it was not concentrated, it was dilute and not fissile. Nailedtooth (talk) 17:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
AzureAnt - it is apparent that you don't understand the difference between radiation, radioactive material, and fissile material.
You get INES events for any significant radioactive material leak. This can be totally unconnected to a reactor.
The introduction of the article reads:

This article lists notable civilian accidents involving fissile nuclear material or nuclear reactors. Civilian incidents not serious enough to be accidents are listed at List of civilian nuclear incidents. Military accidents are listed at List of military nuclear accidents. Civil radiation accidents not involving fissile material are listed at List of civilian radiation accidents. For a general discussion of both civilian and military accidents, see Nuclear and radiation accidents.

Note the fourth sentence - "Civil radiation accidents not involving fissile material are listed at List of civilian radiation accidents".
Also the clarification further down in the article:

In listing civilian nuclear accidents, the following criteria have been followed:

  1. There must be well-attested and substantial health damage, property damage or contamination.
  2. The damage must be related directly to radioactive material, not merely (for example) at a nuclear power plant.
  3. To qualify as "civilian", the nuclear operation/material must be principally for non-military purposes.
  4. The event should involve fissile material or a reactor.
Tricastin involved health risk and contamination, radioactive material, and civilian, but not fissile material.
That it belongs on the other list (List of civilian radiation accidents) does not minimize the contamination or environmental impact. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AzureAnt - given the double standard in play on this page, the best course of action may simply be to create a new WP list of incidents that is complete, and simply abandon any attempt to add to this list. Christopher Rath (talk) 02:19, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is this a double standard? The incident deserves coverage, the question is what category it falls into. If it belongs in the other list, it doesn't belong here.
The question isn't suppressing anything. The question is - do categories and definitions matter, or not? If you want to include every radioactive material incident in one list then propose to merge this and the List of civilian radiation accidents. I don't personally care either way and didn't have anything to do with setting up the lists or their criteria.
Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:05, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References


German entries on this list

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Both entries on german events in this list are seriously flawed. The Greifswald incident incorrectly states that fuel melted. That was not the case. The given source (antenna.nl/wise/) doesn't say anything about melting fuel in the 1976 incident. It says something about fuel melting in a separate 1989 incident but that is also wrong. In fact there were some defect fuel elements leaking gaseous fission products, which stayed in the primary coolant. While undesirable this is not such a uncommon occurance and definately not a reason for a high INES rating, but no actual molten fuel. The prosaic description given by antenna.nl on both events are inaccurate and confused at best. The source shouldn't be used at all.

The THTR incident description is even more frivolous. Whoever thought this is an INES levle 3 to 5 is out of his mind. The question was actually whether the allowed daily emission level during normal operation was surpassed at all (difficult to measure due to chernobyl fallout and faulty measuring equipment in the exhaust stack of the plant). If it was surpassed it still would be INES 0. I will now edit both of those entries. --81.173.135.30 (talk) 19:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further musing about those incidents leads me to the question whether these incidents shuold be included at all. Greifswald, while not to be underestimated from a safety point of view, did not result in any radioactive release at all. And in the THTR case the release was so trivial that you could include the daily operation of some reactors, if the activity is considered. By no means a hazard to the health of the public. --81.173.135.30 (talk) 22:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Idaho Falls

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Why is Idaho Falls not on this list? Criticality accident three fatalities. Research reactor. Ottawakismet (talk) 16:18, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SL-1 was a US Army reactor staffed by military personnel, which is why it doesn't go on a list of civilian nuclear accidents.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:20, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Second (1958) Chalk River incident likely has incorrect INES Level

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The paper referenced for the "5" appears to rank only the 1952 incident as level 5. The 1958 incident is mentioned, but described as less severe. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph241/zerkalov1/docs/mukhopadhyay.pdf

My guess is that the 1958 incident was level 4, but I have not been able to find any source that gives it an INES level. KaiaVintr (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]