Visit to Pelindaba

On a beautiful Saturday morning 13th October 2001, already stinking hot, we waited at the entrance of Pelindaba enjoying the ambience. Trevor said he had a Bin Laden affiliation card and that that would allow us in. Mike Smith from Pelindaba, our guide, led us in convoy through the area on a scenic drive, which was obviously the original pick of the prime sites as far as views were concerned, and is surely the envy of developers.

Mike then entered a building where we were "bored" with core samples from a recently discovered impact crater, Morokweng, to the NW of Vryburg. These samples were donated to Dr Marco Andreoli. The name Pelindaba comes from the time when the dam was planned and negotiations were set up with the original tribal owners. When it was agreed that the dam would be for the benefit of all, the conclusion was PELINDABA "we are finished talking". Valindaba, where the atomic bomb was made, means "we do not talk". Like people in a 007 movie we snaked through endless corridors and up staircases until we came to a vast room, in the centre of which was the "pool". A scale model was used to demonstrate how the reactor functioned. We saw artificial crystals made in the reactor. On the balustrade bridge around the pool was a lifebelt with the word SAFARI on it - ah ha - this was no ordinary swimming pool. At the computer station we noticed workers in white coats, relaxed, and reading books on how to project a positive attitude. They watched the rods in the reactor on their screens.

After donning protective white coats which are afterwards disposed as contaminated waste, we poured over the railings looking at the glow of the pool water. The glow has resulted from decay particles in the water from radiation emitted from the fuel rods. These particles go faster than the speed of light in water. The fuel rods glowed with that same magnetising turquoise that one has seen in a telescope in the star Shaula in Scorpio. Some fuel rods used beryllium that absorbs radiation. The reactor is extremely small considering its power - about 2 metres.

Frans Van Nieuwkerk said he would "love to work here". Mike said they didn't have a problem taking him on their books, but that they did not like people working. Something would be terribly wrong if people were seen to be working there at all.

The spent fuel rods taken from the reactor are still radioactive because the uranium has daughter products. They are stored in shelves in the pool, kept under water until a batch of them is ready to be transported and disposed in dug pits on site, somewhere in the hills.

As we exited the lethal zone we had to have our soles and heels checked by a Geiger counter. If the alarm had rung would we have had to leave a shoe behind?

We crossed into the Hot Cell Containment Unit. Here Mike has constructed six viewing windows of lead glass which are extremely thick, hellishly expensive and totally impervious to radiation. These windows are unshatterable. One did shatter freakishly enough, when someone walked past and set up static. Mike said he thought they were joking when they came to tell him the news. The cells are sealed airtight. The radioactive products from the reactor to the cells are carried by an extremely cautious and expensive method.

Behind these windows radioactive filings are collected in little dishes and sorted into phials by mechanical arms These isotopes "must not be crossed, because that can make the patient very cross". These arms outside the windows were designed by Mike ingeniously, complete with all the shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. They activate similar arms inside the window, and with the index finger and thumb the work is done.

The phials are then transported to Nuclear Medicine Departments or to Industry. We saw a photo of a lesion inflicted on a worker who had skin contact with deadly isotopes. A worker who had the isotopes in a phial in a pocket for a couple of hours subsequently lost his leg. We learned that lead aprons are not impermeable to radiation.

The radioactive isotopes are returned after use and stored in six huge barrels weighing many tons, each barrel named after one of the wives, "Sarie .....etc."

Isotopes can be used in many ways. For example in industry they can detect cracks in concrete or the thickness of metal. If a beam is sent through metal and the detector on the other side of it detects too little radiation, then the metal is too thick. A radioactive beam can be used in checking how full cans of beer are. Fruitflies that burrow into unripened mangoes are beamed at the right time and this keeps the fruit good for export.

A Technetium scan is a diagnostic scan done with isotopes and a Geiger counter. Because Technetium isotopes have a very extensive half life, they are stored in a receptacle (cow) until required for the examination. They are then "milked" to a higher shell (shorter half life), now known as Cobalt 60 where decay is rapid, i.e., a few hours. This is obviously to the patient's advantage. The patient is injected with isotopes. Tumours and infections are made up of very rapidly splitting cells, (something like half a second), and so they absorb all sorts of things like protein, amino adds and Technetium, in the flurry.

A Geiger counter is then passed over the patient and the area of tumour or infection spotted and recorded on an x-ray plate, and the information is stippled on it. Technetium cannot be used to bombard the tumour, although this technology is still in an experimental stage. They are trying to get different tumours to show up in different colours so they can bombard that area of colour with the same colour laser beam.

We learnt that the "cow" was not the Hospital Matron as was erroneously thought by some hospital staff.

The rest of the day was spent unwinding on a splendid old farmhouse lawn where we had lunch under the trees. We saw exotic birds and discussed involved science. We set off on the loveliest hike in Gauteng, namely the Philadingwe Nature Trail on a hot Saturday afternoon. Don't tell Computicket about this show. It was the best.

Thanks Trevor for arranging this day for us and Mike for taking us around.

Mary MacKinnon