Nuclear Reactor Microbiologically Induced Corrosion

First introduction of MIC concept (~1979); sulfide-reducing bacteria surviving 40,000 rad in hot reactor regions.

They had a regression formula that took some of these things into account, so you get the cross effect. And then the sulfide content. If you had sulfide, this tends to be sulfide-reducing bacteria. There's a certain type of corrosion we now call MIC — microbiologically induced corrosion — which we really didn't recognize. The first I ever heard about MIC was about 1979. They had some MIC corrosion in a nuclear reactor, and these bugs were surviving forty thousand rad. A human would last for about three minutes. They were replicating their DNA so fast, repairing their DNA — it's just incredible. These bugs were right there in one of the hottest parts of the reactor, and they had this little colony.