From: Kai Becker (kmb@kai-m-becker.de)
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 02:30:29 MST
Am Mittwoch, 5. Februar 2003 03:37 schrieb Chuck Kuecker:
> Argonne Labs here, had its IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) program
Oops, liquid Na coolant, just next to high pressure steam. Na is
extremely difficult to handle and in its liquid form is a hazard by
itself. What happens if the core is shut down? You can't open the liquid
Na to the open air. How is the coolant kept flowing in case of a shut
down? Na also transmutes under neutron radiation to Na-24, which decays
to Mg-24. That makes a Mg extraction necessary, which will also be
contaminated.
"Sodium catches fire on contact with air and explodes on contact with
water. Further, the nucleus of ordinary sodium absorbs a neutron and
turns into a highly radioactive isotope sodium-24. [I don't know the rate
of this reaction and Na24 has a t1/2 of only 15h, so I can't estimate the
radioactive risk of Na24 --Kai] [...] To prevent leakage of sodium-24
into the environment, sodium-cooled reactors are designed with two liquid
sodium loops. The secondary, non- radioactive sodium loop draws heat
from the primary loop and, in turn, is used to boil water in a steam
generator. The December 1995 accident at the Japanese breeder reactor at
Monju involved a large leak of sodium from the secondary loop."[1]
> The "FSU" (good acronym!) has a multitude of sins to answer for - but I
> believe that in a free market, power plants would be built responsibly
> and run responsibly - because to do otherwise would ruin the profits.
As far as I've seen free (i.e. totally uncontrolled) markets, the profits
will be driven to the maximum (also by reducing costs for safety,
security and personnel) by shareholders far away enough. These
shareholders will write off their investment at the point where the risks
and costs rise, and the profit decreases, leaving the ruin behind with no
budget to cover the proper handling, probably sell it for a Dollar to a
post box corp. After all, safety is always a cost factor and becomes even
more uneconomical when not being outweighted by profits.
> Not a loony, simply a knowledgeable, concerned person who lives a whole
> lot closer to Chernobyl than I do..
The effects of Chernobyl where significantly, even though we are >1500km
away. I've found a quote that describes the most important effects: "A
large amount of agricultural produce in Europe had to be dumped due to
contamination from fallout. For instance, most vegetables in the region
around Munich were destroyed because they had become contaminated with
iodine-131. The southern portion of the former West Germany was more
contaminated than the rest of it. There were also severe restrictions on
agricultural activities, including sales of meat from three million sheep
and lambs in northwestern England and the neighboring portions of
Scotland and northern Wales, which were affected by rain-out of
radioactivity when the fallout cloud passed over them."[2]
If we would have just one accident like that in western Europe, we could
only shut down everything and look for another place to live.
Kai
[1] http://www.ieer.org/reports/npdd.html
[2] http://www.ieer.org/reports/npd7.html
-- == Kai M. Becker == kmb@kai-m-becker.de == Bremen, Germany == "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced"
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