jlf1961
Posts: 14840
Joined: 6/10/2008 From: Somewhere Texas Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: DomKen quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen quote:
ORIGINAL: servantforuse There are 104 nuclear power plants in the United States. Not one person has ever been killed in this country because of one of those plants. I would say that they are safe. 3 people have died in the US from nuclear plant accidents. edit: got the number killed wrong Slipping on a banana peel in a nuclear plant control room doesnt count. They were killed by a reactor going prompt critical and blowing up. Uh, you might want to add a little fact to that statement, the accident in question was the result of a control rod being pulled too far out which resulted in a STEAM explosion, by the reactor going critical. This should explain the term critical to you: quote:
In a nuclear reactor, the neutron population at any instant is a function of the rate of neutron production (due to fission processes) and the rate of neutron losses (via non-fission absorption mechanisms and leakage from the system). When a reactor’s neutron population remains steady from one generation to the next (creating as many new neutrons as are lost), the fission chain reaction is self-sustaining and the reactor's condition is referred to as "critical". When the reactor’s neutron production exceeds losses, characterized by increasing power level, it is considered "supercritical", and; when losses dominate, it is considered "subcritical" and exhibits decreasing power. quote:
On January 3, 1961, the only fatal nuclear reactor accident in the U.S. occurred at the NRTS. An experimental reactor called SL-1 (Stationary Low-Power Plant Number 1) was destroyed when a control rod was pulled too far out of the reactor, leading to core meltdown and a steam explosion. The reactor vessel jumped up 9 feet 1 inch (2.77 m).[56] The concussion and blast killed all three military enlisted personnel working on the reactor. Due to the extensive radioactive isotope contamination, all three had to be buried in lead coffins. The events are the subject of two books, one published in 2003, Idaho Falls: The untold story of America's first nuclear accident,[57] and another, Atomic America: How a Deadly Explosion and a Feared Admiral Changed the Course of Nuclear History, published in 2009.[56]
< Message edited by jlf1961 -- 3/14/2011 4:48:40 PM >
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Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think? You cannot control who comes into your life, but you can control which airlock you throw them out of. Paranoid Paramilitary Gun Loving Conspiracy Theorist AND EQUAL OPPORTUNI
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