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The military may not have this problem but for civilian use I’d ask: how do you secure this? For example: how do you ensure someone with a semi truck doesn’t ra
by entee 7y ago
The military may not have this problem but for civilian use I’d ask: how do you secure this? For example: how do you ensure someone with a semi truck doesn’t ram into it and spill massively radioactive stuff all over the place?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoIs there any answer that would satisfy this question?
- acidburnNSA 7y agoMine above does. Just overlapped you in the thread.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoThanks
- acidburnNSA 7y agoThe nuclear fuel in these is almost always solid. It doesn't spill. All you have to do is ensure it is coolable in all geometries. To do that in this kind of scenario you generally down-rate it to powers that can be carried off by natural circulation of air flowing by it while it lays in the ditch. It's a tradeoff though because you generally want to get as much power as possible out of your equipment. If you want to trade lower power for a longer lasting core with more accident resilience you can do that. The x-energy gas cooled reactor behind this particular concept has astoundingly robust fuel pebbles called triso. They conduct their heat to the vessel and it passes it to passive airflow in all accidents.
- gmueckl 7y agoThere is a fundamental misconception in your post: radioactive material can spill no matter whether it is in solid, liquid or gaseous aggregate state. What matters is the mechanical integrity of the surrounding shielding. If that is intentionally damaged or destroyed, you have a pretty bad nuclear accident on your hands.
- entee 7y agoThanks this helps a lot. One other Q: if the pellets spill, how dangerous are they from a radioactivity perspective?
- acidburnNSA 7y agoUnshielded but intact pebbles would emit extraordinarily high amounts of radiation that falls off with 1/r^2 by geometric attenuation. Picking them up and putting them back in a shield would require remote handling (long tools and/or robots). But once they're all picked up and re-shielded, the radiation would be gone. Much different from spilling a vat of radioactive liquid which is much harder to clean.
- cheez 7y agoBury it?
- tomatotomato37 7y agoSame way you defend a regular reactor; razorwire, bollards, and armed guards. Just because its built into a cargo container doesn't mean you just plop it down and you gtg; there's still minor infrastructure you have to build it into
- killjoywashere 7y agoOff the top of my head, I would secure something like this with a heavy perimeter fence (plenty of designs available) 200 yards from the vessel, a barbed wire fence 50 yards further out and located 1 mile from anything, with a hard zoning restriction. Worst case scenario, this is successful beyond your wildest dreams, cities grow up around them in the desert, and you have cities pock-marked by 2-mile diameter holes full of wildlife. The other bit is as acidburnNSA said: don't. Build it to fail safe.
- chasd00 7y agoi would add, also build it at some depth underground. Someone will eventually try to hit it with an airplane i'm sure. Maybe retrofit some old ICBM silos or use their design.
- jagged-chisel 7y agoPark it underground?
- petre 7y agoJust throw enough huge concrete blocks around it and you're safe from trucks. A tank or an ICBM is a different matter altogether.