Normal Atmospheric dispersion

Hey guys,

Yesterday I talked about fall out, what it does, and what not. Today I will be talking about normal atmospheric dispersion from nuclear power plants.

Ventilation exhaust from most building in a nuclear power plant do not contain any radioactivity. But the air ejector exhaust from building that house radioactive material can contain radioactivity. This is where the problems arrive. In a PWR these exhausts are not radioactive unless there is some type of release into the steam generators. In a PWR these exhausts are highly radioactive.

The way they deal with this gas is to monitor it for one. In a PWR if the levels get too high, they redirect the flow through some filters that will take care of the problem. In a PWR, the process is to let the air flow all around so that it decays before being released. There are also special filters to clean up whatever is left.\

For the radioactive gas that does get through to the atmosphere, it has to be monitored where it goes and the limits, set by the NRC for public dose, has to be shown that it wasnt met. One model used to demonstrate the dispersion of the radioactive gas is the Atmospheric Radionuclide Transport model (ARTM) produced by GRS and Janicke. This will let facilities model where their exhaust is going and who it might affect. This will also allow them to see how high their stacks need to be to dilute the exhaust down to safe levels. A free download is available at the grs website below.

http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/environ1.htm
http://www.grs.de/en/artm-atmospheric-radionuclide-transport-model

Hope this was intersting!!!!!!

The Nuke Cow