Any thoughts?

Moose: Nuclear plants have to be built near large bodies of water to use in their cooling systems, typically the ocean because lakes are closed. The west coast of Japan isn’t doing much, and there are mountains in the way, so it makes at least some sense to put the plants where they are.

That the system hinged on the diesel generator failing is the most concerning part of all this. It absolutely should not have failed and since it did, the core should then have some well planned system for cooling without it! This is basic risk management. There will be some hard questions asked of the company after this.

Too much pressure, too soon for turbines not engineered for the speed of release.

It appears that the periodic controlled release of steam is one way to deal with overheating yet contained nuclear reactor cores afflicted by compromised cooling systems.

A lesson learned.
For all seaside reactors, too.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/12/2010/06/4e157d1ccfe92e4de09c5c55d4c659ba/original.jpg

Probably nuclear war, but it would already be going on. That’s the only scenario I can come up with.

In a power plant, the reactor is just amplifying delayed neutrons.
Delayed neutrons: Some fission products give off neutrons seconds or minutes after fragging off. The reactor keeps itself going by generating new delayed neutrons as it fissions. But absorbing some, over seconds-timescales, you can control it.

In a bomb, the chain reaction is over in a microsecond, you couldn’t possibly control it with mechanical devices.

See The Los Alamos Primer, and look up delayed neutrons and reactor physics. Its subtle but the difference between a bonfire and a detonation.

My question is: how hot does a single tube get all by itself once it is filled?

My confusion is: First, I assume that a single tube does not get very hot, at least not boiling hot. Certainly, a single tube would not get so hot as to start melting the tube…right? So, if these tubes in the core are separated by control rods then why is there any threat of melting?

Thanks,

I have a fair bit of confidence in many nations’ nuclear plants to contain their messes, even in the event of a partial meltdown; This is by design. Sciencey folks should review the horrible design and operational failures which allowed Chernobyl to happen, and subsequently, contaminate much of the Ukraine, Belarus, and even parts of Western Europe.

Humans have harnessed many powerful and dangerous forces, not the least of which is nuclear energy. The important thing is to treat these forces with the respect they require. If we don’t, the price is indeed a high one.

Nice idea, though. Not practical, however.

http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/nuclear_power_safety?utm_source=SP&utm_medium=blog-more&utm_campaign=SP-blog-more-3-13-11

Maggie, as much as I appreciate your efforts to explain the situation calmly. and rationally, all the more following Rachel Maddow’s moment of blissful ignorance with the UCS flack, you fail pretty bad at meeting your own stated purpose of the article with this quote here. These words suggest the control rods are only thing keeping a reactor from blowing up like a bomb (a common fear) and you fail to mention here that the unenriched fuel used in reactors precludes this outcome entirely. This is not a minor detail.

Thorium is a superior nuclear fuel and has several important advantages over uranium:

–Thorium powered nuclear reactors are more efficient and produce less than 1% of the waste of today’s uranium nuclear reactors.
–Thorium reactors are safer, less expensive, smaller and can be configured to eliminate the possibility of melt downs or accidents.
–Thorium does not produce plutonium and thus, could effectively eliminate further weapons production in volatile regions and reduce proliferation on a global scale, thus ending stalemate arguments over dubious nuclear programs such as exist in Iran and North Korea.
–Proprietary thorium technology, capable of safely and efficiently dismantling nuclear stockpiles and eliminating spent uranium, now exists.

The modern concept of the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) uses uranium and thorium dissolved in fluoride salts of lithium and beryllium. These salts are chemically stable, impervious to radiation damage, and non-corrosive to the vessels that contain them. Because of their ability to tolerate heavy radiation, excellent temperature properties, minimal fuel loading requirements (i.e., ease of continual refueling) and other inherent factors, LFTR cores can be made much smaller than a typical light water reactor (LWR- Lightbridge – LTBR). In fact, liquid salt reactors, and LFTRs specifically, are listed as an unfunded part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Generation-4 Nuclear Solution Plan.

http://www.ThoriumEnergyAlliance.com

The first step for people to become informed about these issues is that many people should own a geiger counters. Most people in the world can afford them. Mine cost around $300usd, a few decades ago. If most of the citizens of Japan near the failed nuclear plant had geiger counters, then they would have a better individual and collective idea what was going on.

If people do not own gieger counters, then authorities will maintain and control the hood of ignorance and manipulation over the people.