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Indeed. TMI was pretty close to a worst case disaster for a PWR with a partial, uncontrolled meltdown, with a lot of corium ending up on the bottom of the vess

by hga 11y ago

Indeed. TMI was pretty close to a worst case disaster for a PWR with a partial, uncontrolled meltdown, with a lot of corium ending up on the bottom of the vessel where it did exactly what was planned, sat there not particularly bothering anyone except the company which would have really rather continued generating power from the reactor. I'd have to double check, but as I recall if you were standing outside the containment vessel, you'd have received the dosage you'd get from sleeping with two other people (potassium-40) ... which we should clearly outlaw right now due to that grave danger (along with living in the Mile High city of Denver, commercial jetliner travel, and eating bananas).

3JPLW 11y ago
> a lot of corium ending up on the bottom of the vessel where it did exactly what was planned Yes, that's what happened, but I wouldn't say it was planned. Popular wisdom at the time was that the corium should have melted the whole way through the containment vessel. It was only afterwards that they discovered that the water and corium itself helped keep the steel containment vessel cool enough to prevent melting (albeit just barely).[1] Yes, almost no radiation was released. But we got very lucky. It was close to melting through the containment vessel. "By some estimates, the core was 30 minutes away from melting through the eight-inch-thick steel reactor vessel when cooling water was finally restored."[2] 1. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-30/news/mn-17003_1_nuclear-fuel http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-30/news/mn-17003_1_nucle... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/cleanup032889.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/...
- hga 11y ago
  Yes, that's what happened, but I wouldn't say it was planned. Popular wisdom at the time was that the corium should have melted the whole way through the containment vessel. The "popular wisdom" is utter propaganda bullshit; have you ever wondered why the popular at the time and mentioned in [1] "China Syndrome" is for some inexplicable reason is not longer bandied about? The design of the reactor vessel allowed for this and withstood the stress without the bigger concrete containment vessel even coming into play. Note even in [1]: Besides the insulating property of the fuel and the strength of the steel vessel, previous studies had shown the concrete bases on which U.S. reactors are built also would hold up against melting fuel, Beckjord said. That you are confounding the reactor and containment vessels in your posting suggests to me how effective that propaganda has been.

by hga 11y ago

3JPLW 11y ago

> a lot of corium ending up on the bottom of the vessel where it did exactly what was planned Yes, that's what happened, but I wouldn't say it was planned. Popular wisdom at the time was that the corium should have melted the whole way through the containment vessel. It was only afterwards that they discovered that the water and corium itself helped keep the steel containment vessel cool enough to prevent melting (albeit just barely).[1] Yes, almost no radiation was released. But we got very lucky. It was close to melting through the containment vessel. "By some estimates, the core was 30 minutes away from melting through the eight-inch-thick steel reactor vessel when cooling water was finally restored."[2] 1. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-30/news/mn-17003_1_nuclear-fuel http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-30/news/mn-17003_1_nucle... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/stories/cleanup032889.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/...

hga 11y ago
Yes, that's what happened, but I wouldn't say it was planned. Popular wisdom at the time was that the corium should have melted the whole way through the containment vessel. The "popular wisdom" is utter propaganda bullshit; have you ever wondered why the popular at the time and mentioned in [1] "China Syndrome" is for some inexplicable reason is not longer bandied about? The design of the reactor vessel allowed for this and withstood the stress without the bigger concrete containment vessel even coming into play. Note even in [1]: Besides the insulating property of the fuel and the strength of the steel vessel, previous studies had shown the concrete bases on which U.S. reactors are built also would hold up against melting fuel, Beckjord said. That you are confounding the reactor and containment vessels in your posting suggests to me how effective that propaganda has been.