Word: coolant
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...activated. That started a reactor "scram" or shutdown. Tons of water flowed into the reactor and out through the open relief valve. At the same time, malfunctioning instruments gave reactor operators misleading readings of reactor pressure, which made them believe that the core of enriched uranium was covered with coolant when it was not. The operators switched off the system on the assumption that it was no longer needed. The premature shutdown and temporary loss of coolant caused the reactor's fuel rods to overheat. They reached a temperature of around 2,500° F., which could have...
...staff members said they discovered certain instruments in some power plants designed by Westinghouse can give conflicting and misleading readings about coolant water levels in the reactor. NRC officials have said a similar situation existed at Three Mile Island and may have contributed to the accident...
...pregnant women and preschool children living within five miles of Three Mile Island, and thousands of people fled the area. As tension mounted, engineers struggled to cool the reactor's core. There was a genuine danger of a "meltdown," in which the core could drop into the water coolant at the bottom of its chamber, causing a steam explosion that could rupture the 4-ft.-thick concrete walls of the containment building; or the molten core could burn through the even thicker concrete base and deep into the earth. In either case, lethally radioactive gases would be released, causing...
...disposing of radioactive waste from nuclear plants was far more complex than either the industry or the Government had believed. At about the same time, the NRC shut down five nuclear power plants in the East because it was not certain they had been designed so that their coolant pipes could survive an earthquake...
...operators of the plant reduced the size of the bubble by letting the gas dissolve in the reactor's circulating coolant system, then removing them in a chamber outside the reactor...