4 ms·
> Nuclear power has a closed fuel cycle: what goes in comes out and is stored. Nowadays yes, but this wasn't always the case. The earliest Soviet reactors were
by kogepathic 10y ago
> Nuclear power has a closed fuel cycle: what goes in comes out and is stored.
Nowadays yes, but this wasn't always the case. The earliest Soviet reactors were open cycle and discharged directly into Lake Kyzyltash. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay
- throwanem 10y agoLesson learned: Don't trust Stalin and Beria with a nuclear plant. Or anything else, of course, but fortunately for everyone both men are safely dead and their danger thus permanently curtailed.
- makomk 10y agoJust being closed cycle isn't enough. A couple of the early British reactors apparently exposed the public to low levels of neutron and gamma radiation in normal operation because part of the cooling loop was outside the radiation shield for cost-saving reasons.
- throwanem 10y agoA lot of early reactors did a lot of things we now recognize as members of the "pants on head" category of activities. We know better now because back then they didn't, and had to discover what not to do the hard way. We are fortunate to have such examples, and would be foolish to squander such hardly learned knowledge.