Friday, May 22, 2020

Dow has a research reactor on its site?

From the New York Times article covering the Midland floods and its effect on the Dow site, this interesting tidbit:
...There is also a tiny nuclear research reactor on the site, used to create material that can be used in product experiments. Overnight, Dow filed an “unusual event” report with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission warning of potential flooding at the site. But the reactor had already been shut down because of the coronavirus crisis, and there were no indications of flood damage on Wednesday....
Here's the reactor's NRC page, which indicates the reactor is still active. According to this 1982 presentation, looks like (unsurprisingly) the reactor is used for neutron activation analysis. Here's a nice 2007 article about the reactor operators.

Again, best wishes to Dow employees and blog readers who are in Midland. 

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