mmrmnhrm Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Also scary to think (especially for you youngsters) how close we came to a similar situation in Three Mile Island in PA, though the operators and systems prevented a total failure. Sigh... no. Had Three Mile Island breached containment, we would NOT have had a Chernobyl-type incident, we'd have had a Fukushima Dai. The Russian RBMK reactor (of which several are still in operation) uses graphite blocks as a neutron moderator, while American and Japanese use heavy water. Graphite burns and explodes when coolant water is lost, while D2O just boils off, leaving superheated reactor rods behind. Those rods then melt and puddle on the floor of the containment vessel. If cooling still isn't returned within sufficient time, it just glops through the steel bottle and begins making its way towards the Earth's core, causing groundwater and aquifer contamination, but not surface or atmospheric. Pick your poison, I suppose, but at least know your poisons before picking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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