| General > General Technical Chat |
| something is leaking in europe |
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| Cerebus:
--- Quote from: coppercone2 on July 06, 2020, 04:00:44 am ---TL;DR current and old data is accurate. Attack on thread unnecessary. This is a serious issue, please double check before you come off like a kremlin troll. Think about how much bad can happen if one of these things goes off. --- End quote --- There's no need to be such a dick, no "Attack on thread" is involved, neither is the Kremlin (In English proper nouns get capital letters). No need to go off like a knuckle dragging redneck who's just discovered that Budweiser isn't regarded as beer in the rest of the world. It is, you know, possible to correct someone politely without being vituperative, you might like to try it some time. The stories I read in the news recently linked to the old release. So I was mistaken, there's another new release as well - mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. |
| jmelson:
--- Quote from: jogri on July 05, 2020, 11:13:34 am ---Like i described in other posts, the fuel rod has to crack and you need a leak in the primary cooling loop... And such a leak doesn't get any bigger than a partially disassembled pressure vessel for switching out fuel elements. --- End quote --- it was a fantasy of the original nuclear industry that the Zirconium (thanks for correcting my mistake earlier) cladding would hold in all fission byproducts for the life of the fuel element. They have now been forced to admit that at least gaseous fission products will seep out of the fuel elements at a steady rate. When the reactor is running at full power, the neutron flux is intense, and it breaks down much of the Iodine and Xenon fairly quickly. But, still, some DOES seep out through microscopic pores and into the cooling water. As for BOILING water reactors (please study up on those) The primary coolant is the ONLY coolant, and it runs from the top of the reactor pressure vessel STRAIGHT to the turbines, which are OUTSIDE the containment. Even without any malfunction, the gaseous isotopes are sucked out of the condenser by vacuum pumps and piped up the "smokestacks". This is a small, but steady, release of radioactive byproducts. It DOES add up over time. On the other hand, the amount of radioactive isotopes held in the fuel elements that can be released in a major accident is staggering, and (I think) millions of times worse than the steady leakage of Iodine, Xenon, etc. Jon |
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