| User | Comment |
|---|
| ILJ | | posted 21-Feb-2000 2:00pm |
Had leaked? Like once upon a time? I would certainly investigate. If I could be convinced that it was a very rare event and that the chances of it happening again were negligible, I might stay. Of course there are other factors like distance from the plant, ground water contamination, etc. Basically, my first instinct would be to move, but I would investigate first to see if it was actually necessary. Chances are it would be. |
| phi | | posted 21-Feb-2000 2:01pm |
It Depends. |
Maarten  | | posted 21-Feb-2000 3:12pm |
How did this get thru qualification?
It would depend on how nearby the plant was and how much there was leaked. |
romkey  | | posted 21-Feb-2000 3:58pm |
I wouldn't live near a nuclear plant in the first place. |
| daver | | posted 21-Feb-2000 5:10pm |
I've lived near a leaking nuclear power plant. |
| eris | | posted 21-Feb-2000 5:50pm |
For me it would depend substantially on the specific kind of waste, how much, and where it was leaked to (atmosphere, water, etc.). |
| drdt | | posted 21-Feb-2000 6:27pm |
Depends on how seriously they handled the cleanup. |
bill  | | posted 22-Feb-2000 6:41am |
It depends how much the local news media makes a fuss about it. If they manage to get me into a panic, I'd move. I bet I wouldn't be able to sell my house though. |
| pcpr | | posted 22-Feb-2000 4:36pm |
Romkey, I don't think your house in Harvard Square is that far away from MIT -- didn't they have a nuclear reactor sometime ago? Did they get rid of it? (Sure it wasn't big to begin with and I assume MIT is more careful with it than "for profit" power plants, but still...) |
| romkey | | posted 22-Feb-2000 6:56pm |
pcpr - yeah actually you're right, I think the reactor is still there at MIT. For some reason they don't talk about it a lot. |
dab  | | posted 22-Feb-2000 6:56pm |
I hear Harvard has one too. It was pretty funny when Cambridge voted itself a nuclear free zone. |
| drdt | | posted 22-Feb-2000 9:42pm |
pcpr, romkey: is the one at MIT leaking? |
| romkey | | posted 22-Feb-2000 10:45pm |
drdt - I hope not, or I'll be glowing! it's more like the city of Cambridge is leaking. |
| mandy | | posted 22-Feb-2000 11:13pm |
It depends on how big the leak was...how well it was contained/cleaned up and how close it actually was to my home. |
| pcpr | | posted 23-Feb-2000 1:59am |
drdt -- as far as I can tell the nuclear reactor at MIT has never leaked. My question was more along the lines Romkey saying he wouldn't want to live near a reactor; since he's much more aware of what goes inside MIT than I am I assumed they had gotten rid of it (I used to know people at Project Athena that would be more than happy to see the reactor go away or move from MIT campus because of all the paper work they had to file with several commissions every single time a new workstation, server or computer had to be installed near the reactor, and that included the computer clusters at the Student Center).
dab -- that was pretty funny, but then again given how Cambridge works it doesn't surprise me at all. |
| Resy | | posted 23-Feb-2000 4:26pm |
I'd check to see the extent of the damage first - but I might send my son to stay with grandma while the research was being done. |
| drdt | | posted 23-Feb-2000 10:26pm |
dab,pcpr: I presume they mean "nuclear-free-zone" to mean "we don't use nuclear power"? |
| pcpr | | posted 24-Feb-2000 4:32am |
drdt -- maybe, but that would only show even more ignorance given the way the power grid works at least in Massachusetts, where everything is interconnected. I'm not sure if the MIT reactor is experimental (configuration changing often and might not even be working most of the time) or production; I heard conflicting anecdotes about it being able to generate electricity, only steam for heat but no electricity and "no, it's definitely there only for nuclear experiments, no heat at all" so at this point I am not sure what to believe. |
| romkey | | posted 24-Feb-2000 11:13am |
pcpr - nah, I probably wouldn't know if MIT got rid of the reactor. I just forget about it all the time. |
| dab | | posted 24-Feb-2000 1:08pm |
drdt, one hopes that's what they meant but I recall lots of jokes about how all the nuclei were going to be removed from the city. |
| drdt | | posted 24-Feb-2000 9:57pm |
dab: pffft! Okay, I get you.
Pcpr: I'd like to see them run a nuclear reactor without giving off any heat :) |
| pcpr | | posted 25-Feb-2000 4:31am |
drdt -- I think what they meant by "it doesn't generate heat" is more as opposed to super-heated high-pressure steam for generating electrical power (with turbines) or steam to use for heat (pipes distribute it to the campus). If the reactor has very low amounts of fuel and is used primarily to irradiate objects it may give off so little heat that it could be just warm water (in other words, if the people running it are interested only in the radiation as output as opposed to the heat from fission.) |
they  | | posted 26-Feb-2000 9:59pm |
There is one about 40 miles from where I grew up that is supposedly being 'cleaned up'... There have been many lawsuits from cancer patients... I never moved because of it. |
| Gamera | | posted 29-Feb-2000 2:30pm |
I know that Yankee/Rowe consistently rates at the bottom of the list for safety and maintenance of nuke plants in the country. I haven't moved out of Somerville, but I can't bring myself to go swimming at the beaches from which you can see the plants. |
| pengy | | posted 13-Mar-2000 3:35pm |
As a radiation health physicist, I would have
to have a lot more information about the
leak before I decided whether or not it
warrented my moving. |
