November 30, 2005
Criticality & Radiation Accidents
There is one class of accident that is unique to the nuclear industry: criticality accidents, where an amount of fissile material accidentally comes together into a supercritical amount. There is a sudden release of energy and deadly radiation.
The Atomic Energy Commission, under its mandate from Congress, reported all criticality and radiation accidents in the following documents. The use of understatement is astounding, as when the "Table of Criticality Accidents" lists the accidents involving Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin, but neglects to include that fact that fatalities were involved. ...note that these reports only relate to direct Atomic Energy Commission installations and do not reports accidents in commercial nuclear power plants nor any accidents that occurred within the military.
http://www.ciar.org/ttk/hew/accident/
[Illustration of Louis Slotin Accident]