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What if you swam in a nuclear storage pool?

xkcd's What If?
Explainers
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this explainer1 month2024–2025 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended whenever a thread asks how dangerous it is to fall into a reactor or fuel pool.

Randall Munroe of xkcd answers what would happen if you swam in a spent nuclear fuel pool, and how much radiation you would receive at the surface versus at depth.

“XKCD has a good video about this.” (HN, 2025)

2 recommendations · 2 citations · Explainers

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@seanmcdirmid Oct 2025 Recommends
on HN thread A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
Doesn’t it depend on how far they sink? I’m pretty sure xkcd did a comic on this. Oh, it’s a video, here it is: [this video] Edit: ok, I’m probably the fiftieth person to point this out. It’s still a good video.
Answers how dangerous falling in a reactor pool is

Citations, criticism and jokes

@throw0101c Jul 2024 Cites it
on HN thread A New Specialized Train Is Ready to Haul Nuclear Waste
Read more
> Revell River is a watershed for local communities, and South Bruce is a farming community. Thus, expect to be sued by dozens of folks... Not “if” but “when” the site inevitably leaks like the identical facilities in the US and Germany. Given that the storage will be several hundred metres below the surface and the water table of (e.g.) the Bruce area is at ~35m: * [link] Not sure what such an incident would really do. Especially since the Bruce nuclear plant is already storaging spent fuel on-site for about forty years, so it's not much different if that location is picked. > If it was such a great safe idea, why not install it in downtown New York or Washington? Good jobs program right... ;) Sure. Things are currently held on-site at nuclear plants, and they can continue to do so indefinitely IMHO. I'm in Toronto, ~50km from the Pickering plant, and I'd be fine with that. I good friend of mine has lived in Pickering all his life and doesn't give it a second thought. Heck, if OPG wants to build a spent fuel pool in my backyard I'd be happy to accept it: free year-round "ground-source" heating/cooling for me. * [link] * [this video]
Nuclear storage pool safety
@cpeterso Nov 2024 Cites it
on HN thread The meme-ification of the “Demon Core”
> He took a dip in a pool with a functioning nuclear pile xkcd published a What If? video about the consequences of swimming in a nuclear fuel pool: [this video]
Consequences of swimming in a nuclear fuel pool

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