I read IAEA inspectors are on the way to inspect the Ukraine power plant taken hostage by Russia.
I presume nobody ever thought it would be useful or necessary, but why is it not part of nuclear power plant protocols to have installed a (perhaps solar powered) MCA (multi channel analyzer) with a relatively passive uplink?
Passive uplink could be anything creative like a simple single pixel LCD shutter over a corner cube / retroreflector, so transmission doesn't take much power...
EDIT for clarity: this MCA ground station can refuse to modulate until it recognizes a signed optical transmission through downlink (from satellite or spy plane), and thus only modulate LCD when it is queried by IAEA / allied nations. The modulation of course allows subtracting the background (i.e. sunlight, but also satellite modulated light reflections that did not pass the LCD modulation). This way adversary has a hard time locating the device from above as the allies can refuse to query the MCA-groundstation when adversary planes or satellites are overhead. Instead of a retroreflector covered by a single pixel LCD an alternative could be a mirror covered by an LCD placed at the focal distance of a lens, such that it can only be queried from a certain direction...
I just got my bottle of Potassium Iodide tablets on Saturday, and I'm in the USA (near Chicago). It's for my daughter, just in case. It replaces the old bottle I bought just after Fukushima. I see it as insurance to help her live a long and happy life. I hope it gets old and expires unused, like the last bottle. 8)
The issue is keeping spent fuel and powered down reactors cool, which is a non-trivial issue. According to Wikipedia "About 1 hour after shutdown, the decay heat will be about 1.5% of the previous core power. After a day, the decay heat falls to 0.4%, and after a week it will be 0.2%. The decay heat production rate will continue to slowly decrease over time."
So, if the plant was producing 57,000 Megawatts (full output), that's still 114 megawatts of heat trying to melt things after a week.
Iodine pills are important for reducing risk of thyroid cancer but it is just one risk factor for acute radiation sickness. I hope that people understand popping a pill will not mitigate ARS. I do have many of the pills but in my opinion a full-face painters mask and some P3-100 filters should be a higher priority. A set of disposable painters suits and shoe covers would also be a good investment in my opinion. This is obviously not as good as a hazmat radiation suit but it is a pragmatic trade-off.
If one could afford it, the battery powered air purifying respirator kits are even better. They make it much easier to breath and stay cool using the standard filters and painters mask and much easier to work during fallout. e.g. doing jobs like sealing cracks with spray foam around the house. The downside is these typically cost anywhere from $400 to $2000. I bet some hobbyists here could make one for far less. I've also seen some companies recently producing a low cost powered mask that uses a standard HEPA filter for under $100 but it doesn't cover the eyes.
I presume nobody ever thought it would be useful or necessary, but why is it not part of nuclear power plant protocols to have installed a (perhaps solar powered) MCA (multi channel analyzer) with a relatively passive uplink?
Passive uplink could be anything creative like a simple single pixel LCD shutter over a corner cube / retroreflector, so transmission doesn't take much power...
EDIT for clarity: this MCA ground station can refuse to modulate until it recognizes a signed optical transmission through downlink (from satellite or spy plane), and thus only modulate LCD when it is queried by IAEA / allied nations. The modulation of course allows subtracting the background (i.e. sunlight, but also satellite modulated light reflections that did not pass the LCD modulation). This way adversary has a hard time locating the device from above as the allies can refuse to query the MCA-groundstation when adversary planes or satellites are overhead. Instead of a retroreflector covered by a single pixel LCD an alternative could be a mirror covered by an LCD placed at the focal distance of a lens, such that it can only be queried from a certain direction...