Word: coolant
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...binary code of the computer that does most of the work. Control rods are automatically dropped into the fuel core, which in effect douses its nuclear fires by stopping the fissioning of uranium atoms. Within several hours the temperature drops to 140° C (280° F). Then fresh coolant water is pumped through the reactor's heat exchanger (or steam generator) until the reactor's temperature dwindles to a still warm 65° C (150° F)-about as "cold" as an operational reactor ever gets. It all takes about...
...there is nothing ordinary any more about Three Mile Island's Unit 2. For one thing, the collection of pumps and machinery called the residual heat removal system, essential to the final temperature drop, is not "canned." In nuclear-engineering jargon, that means it is not designed to handle coolant as radioactive as Three Mile Island's. If the elaborate plumbing system were turned on, it would flush contaminated water through pipes and into the plant's auxiliary building, from which it could leak into the atmosphere. The technicians also point out that the pumps themselves produce heat, and could...
...Testing pumps to see if they will circulate coolant through the reactor's steam generator, which creates the steam that normally powers the electricity-producing turbogenerator...
...Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said in its daily status report that in the first 15 hours of the March 28 accident, referred to as a "transient" period, large portions of the core were exposed when coolant water boiled into steam...
Technicians yesterday continued to cool the reactor core slowly as they prepared for an eventual cold shutdown. The main coolant water temperatures had fallen to 249 degrees by afternoon, a drop of one degree since Saturday...