schofi2 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Just Takes One (Score 1) 575

by schofi2 on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @11:40AM (#28782585) Attached to: First New Nuclear Reactor In a Decade On Track

1. Reactors don't explode..

They don't explode like a nuclear bomb but they can have steam explosions.

2. A Chernobyl style accident is impossible with a light water reactor..

That is wrong. *Any* water cooled reactor could potentially have a steam explosion and any such reactor, with a sufficiently stupid design, could have a Chernobyl type accident.

4. Reactors all go critical. What you don't want is for them to go super critical.

5. No modern reactor can go super critical the fuel they use isn't enriched enough to go super critical and they all need a moderator like water to work.

That's not necessarily true (I think you're missusing the term "super critical") and it's not really the point. What you really don't want is for them to generate more heat than the coolant system is capable of dispersing. At the time of Chernobyl, the US had (and I was working on) a similar reactor (graphite/water moderated, dual purpose). A great deal of effort was put in to proving that the same thing couldn't happen here. Thermal reactors (what most of them are) have an optimal ratio of water to fuel. Anyone with any sense designs their reactor to have less than optimal amount of water in the coolant. That way, any accident that causes the reactor to lose water also causes it to lose power. Chernobyl had more than the optimum amount. In the course of the accident the water started to boil (reducing the density) and the power increased, which caused more boiling and ultimately a steam explosion. A design like that would never get approved in any country with competant regulation and if one somehow got built it would get caught in the testing phase.

First New Nuclear Reactor In a Decade On Track 575

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 21, 2009 @04:25PM from the give-me-the-warm-power-of-the-sun dept.

dusty writes "Plans to bring online the first new US nuclear plant since 1995 are on track, on time, and on budget according to the Tennessee Valley Authority. TVA had one major accident with a coal ash spill of late, and one minor one. The agency has plans and workers in place to have Unit 2 at Watts Bar, near Knoxville, online by 2012. Currently over 1,800 workers are doing construction at the plant. Watts Bar #1 is the only new nuclear reactor added to the grid in the last 25 years. From the article: 'TVA estimates the Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor every year will avoid the emission of about 60 million metric tons of greenhouse emissions linked with global warming. ... TVA began construction of Watts Bar in 1973, but work was suspended in 1988 when TVA's growth in power sales declined. After mothballing the unit for 19 years, TVA's board decided in 2007 to finish the reactor because it is projected to provide cheaper, no carbon-emitting power compared with the existing coal plants or purchased power it may help replace.'"

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