Luke
14th March 2011, 11:52
I see a lot of rumour spreading, based on assumption we know what words mean.
What is nuclear meltdown?
(Watches images of chernobyl fire fly by)
Actually, while it happened there, it was not what caused the fallout!
Meltdown simply means that fuel rods melted and turned reactor inoperative. As in "large piece of costly radioactive junk"
That do expel some heat. Every radioactive rock expel heat. That is part of what being radioactive is about.
No problem, as long as this **** is contained. In a concrete dome lined with lead.
REactors are build in a way that prevents them from going critical. They cannot become nukes.
They can become dirty nukes though, if the melt-down fuel will get blown up outside containment dome OR the used fuel will get blown outside their containment.
Problem is, when we strip the fancy terminology, the nuclear plant is basically one big steam boiler, with steam turbine attached. Stuff straight from XIX century.
Even molten reactor produces heat, and as long as you provide water there would be steam.
Problem: you cannot just dump all the water from the reactor. This **** is radioactive for one. Also, the less coolant volume, the easier it's temperature goes up.
Steam boilers do blow up, especially if you mess with their safety valves.
This is what happened in Chernobyl. Also, in Chernobyl there was no containment dome/vault, so when boiler blow up, it taken everything near it. Including the reactor.
This is danger in Japan too, still before their stuff start flying around the containments dome need to be cracked.
*****
Core of the problem is molten reactor producing heat, which turns coolant into highly-pressurized hydrogen-oxygen mix. So far they try to cool the thing down by introducing coolant mixed with nuclear-reaction slowing medium in order to put the boiler out of fire.
What they need to do is take the water/steam/hydrogen out of the equation.
Remember though, it is irradiated too. They cannot just vent it out to atmosphere. But they will do it before there would be a danger of blowing up the whole thing. Still we are talking a fraction of what happened in Ukraine.
The place where (I think) our intentions should go -is lowering the pressure. lowering the temperature. Taking the kettle out from the fire. No more irradiated steam
Do not let focus yourself on disaster if you do not want one to happen.
What is nuclear meltdown?
(Watches images of chernobyl fire fly by)
Actually, while it happened there, it was not what caused the fallout!
Meltdown simply means that fuel rods melted and turned reactor inoperative. As in "large piece of costly radioactive junk"
That do expel some heat. Every radioactive rock expel heat. That is part of what being radioactive is about.
No problem, as long as this **** is contained. In a concrete dome lined with lead.
REactors are build in a way that prevents them from going critical. They cannot become nukes.
They can become dirty nukes though, if the melt-down fuel will get blown up outside containment dome OR the used fuel will get blown outside their containment.
Problem is, when we strip the fancy terminology, the nuclear plant is basically one big steam boiler, with steam turbine attached. Stuff straight from XIX century.
Even molten reactor produces heat, and as long as you provide water there would be steam.
Problem: you cannot just dump all the water from the reactor. This **** is radioactive for one. Also, the less coolant volume, the easier it's temperature goes up.
Steam boilers do blow up, especially if you mess with their safety valves.
This is what happened in Chernobyl. Also, in Chernobyl there was no containment dome/vault, so when boiler blow up, it taken everything near it. Including the reactor.
This is danger in Japan too, still before their stuff start flying around the containments dome need to be cracked.
*****
Core of the problem is molten reactor producing heat, which turns coolant into highly-pressurized hydrogen-oxygen mix. So far they try to cool the thing down by introducing coolant mixed with nuclear-reaction slowing medium in order to put the boiler out of fire.
What they need to do is take the water/steam/hydrogen out of the equation.
Remember though, it is irradiated too. They cannot just vent it out to atmosphere. But they will do it before there would be a danger of blowing up the whole thing. Still we are talking a fraction of what happened in Ukraine.
The place where (I think) our intentions should go -is lowering the pressure. lowering the temperature. Taking the kettle out from the fire. No more irradiated steam
Do not let focus yourself on disaster if you do not want one to happen.