3 ms·

Physically exploding the reactor core might make a mess, but other then a very small amount of radioactive dust, the pieces, consisting of heavy uranium, would

by XorNot 5y ago

Physically exploding the reactor core might make a mess, but other then a very small amount of radioactive dust, the pieces, consisting of heavy uranium, would be scattered over a small area around the plant, and promptly stop reacting because there wouldn't be any neutron moderator or enough proximity for them to trigger additional fission. Meltdowns are hard to cause, because once the reactor slags itself it also stops reacting because it's destroyed its moderator. You're probably thinking of "what if Chernobyl?" and the issue there is that it took genuine, sustained effort to create Chernobyl, and a reactor design that could do it: Chernobyl's big problem wasn't a meltdown (3 mile island was a meltdown) it was a steam explosion beneath the reactor, and then the subsequent graphite fire which spread radioactive particulates over the surrounding area. No practical air strike is going to create a Chernobyl equivalent explosion - there's not enough energy in explosives to do it.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
> Meltdowns are hard to cause, because once the reactor slags itself it also stops reacting because it's destroyed its moderator. You don't need a "meltdown". All four of Fukashima's active reactors exploded after the cooling systems lost power. They had been automatically SCRAM'd when the earthquake hit and had been cooling for a while before the tsunami hit and destroyed the generators, but reactors take months to 'cool down.' https://youtu.be/saM85y8lFm4?t=1997 https://youtu.be/saM85y8lFm4?t=1997 One of the spent fuel storage pools at Fukashima was still generating 3MW of thermal heat at the time of the disaster. Waste fuel that hadn't been in the reactor for months. It came within one degree Celsius of its safe storage temperature - 85 degrees. Its normal operating temperature was 30 degrees. > Physically exploding the reactor core might make a mess, but other then a very small amount of radioactive dust, the pieces, consisting of heavy uranium, would be scattered over a small area around the plant, "Small area"? The Fukashima explosion has left an area around the size of Tokyo proper uninhabitable in one of the most expensive, constrained real estate markets in the world.

by XorNot 5y ago

KennyBlanken 5y ago

> Meltdowns are hard to cause, because once the reactor slags itself it also stops reacting because it's destroyed its moderator. You don't need a "meltdown". All four of Fukashima's active reactors exploded after the cooling systems lost power. They had been automatically SCRAM'd when the earthquake hit and had been cooling for a while before the tsunami hit and destroyed the generators, but reactors take months to 'cool down.' https://youtu.be/saM85y8lFm4?t=1997 https://youtu.be/saM85y8lFm4?t=1997 One of the spent fuel storage pools at Fukashima was still generating 3MW of thermal heat at the time of the disaster. Waste fuel that hadn't been in the reactor for months. It came within one degree Celsius of its safe storage temperature - 85 degrees. Its normal operating temperature was 30 degrees. > Physically exploding the reactor core might make a mess, but other then a very small amount of radioactive dust, the pieces, consisting of heavy uranium, would be scattered over a small area around the plant, "Small area"? The Fukashima explosion has left an area around the size of Tokyo proper uninhabitable in one of the most expensive, constrained real estate markets in the world.