Riding the ghost city

[roibm]

Originally posted by roddyama

Roibm,

Everyone has been asked to get back on topic. Please do so with no more explanations.

Sir, Yes Sir!

[SY]

Great article, though it requires some time budget. Frederick Pohl's "Chernobyl" can provide some insights, too, for those willing to suffer through a novelization of the tragedy.

It's worth contemplating why Chernobyl took the toll it did, while Three Mile Island, much closer to major population areas, was contained quite well. The latter, of course, gave rise to the popular bumper stickers, "More people died in Teddy Kennedy's car than at Three Mile Island."

[millwood]

Originally posted by SY
It's worth contemplating why Chernobyl took the toll it did, while Three Mile Island, much closer to major population areas, was contained quite well.

what makes the difference betweent he two is in their construction: the USSR one used graphite moderators and the tmi reactor has a negative void coefficient (similar to negative feedback in electronics). In comparison, the "positive feedback" existed in the ussr reactor caused massive and sudden power surge and when hot fuel rods met cooling water, it generated tremendous amount of vapor and caused the explosions.

so rather than stopping at the melt-down of the TMI, the graphite at chernobyl started and that caused the massive spread of radiation (which is actually rarely mentioned in popular media. and you will also read about "melt-down" of the chernobyl reactor, when in fact it was two explosion - had not for the graphite caught fire, it would have been much better contained, like the tmi reactor).

I think there were some small output graphite moderated reactors in Canada (for reasearch purposes I think) but those the only known graphite moderated reactors outside of the ussr.

one thing that was never true but you will hear a lot about is that nuclear power plants can explode like bombs. that's pure fiction, .