... You swam in a spent nuclear fuel pool?

I have a pretty weird question for today’s What if article. What if you took a swim in a spent nuclear fuel pool? Could you survive it?

The already used fuel of a nuclear reactor is highly radioactive. Because water is really good for shielding radiation and keeping things cool the radioactive fuel is stored at the bottom of big water pools. Afterwards it is kept there for a few decades till it is inert enough to be put outside.

So, you shouldn’t get to close to it or you are going to be irradiated, at least if it is just air separating the nuclear fuel from you. But since water actually does a pretty good job in protecting you, can you survive swimming in a pool with nuclear fuel at the bottom?

Although the fuel is emitting heat all the time this won’t be a problem in the pool. The temperature will be around 25 to 35°C. So, it is actually not even warmer than a hot tub.

But the bigger problem is of course the radiation. Swimming down to the nuclear fuel and touching it briefly would be enough to kill you. But luckily water shields radiation in quite an efficient way. Every 7 cm of water cut the amount of radiation in half.
That means you should avoid coming closer than a few meters to the fuel. But as long as you don’t swim within this radius you should actually be fine.

However, you will probably never even get close to having the chance to take a swim in a spent nuclear fuel pool as they are protected quite well. But nevertheless I wouldn’t have expected being able to survive swimming in such a pool.