Word: reactors
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...accident, Western experts in Moscow and elsewhere were gradually piecing together the probable sequence of events that led to disaster (see diagram). The trouble seems to have begun Saturday, April 26, when a mishap caused a loss of the water that continuously cools the uranium fuel rods in the reactor's core. With the coolant gone, superheated steam could have triggered ) a series of irreversible reactions leading to a meltdown of the fuel and a blast that ripped through the roof of the building that housed Unit...
Though the accident was a type of core meltdown, the ultimate nuclear power nightmare, U.S. experts also called it a burnup. Meltdowns technically occur in reactors containing pools of water. When the water boils away, the molten core sinks into the earth in the so-called China syndrome, a term used by scientists, and popularized by the 1979 movie of the same name, that mordantly suggests that the radioactive mass might plunge all the way through the earth. The Chernobyl plant had no such pool, by contrast, and engineers expect the reactor to be consumed by intense heat...
...Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago and a strong nuclear power proponent: "Those of us who know something about Soviet safety policy have wondered how they have gotten away without a big accident for as long as they have." The lack of a containment structure for the Chernobyl reactor, which might have limited the emission of radioactivity into the atmosphere after the explosion, is only the most glaring example...
Defenders of nuclear power scrambled last week to distance themselves from Chernobyl. "The design of the Russian reactor is unique," British Environment Secretary Kenneth Baker told Parliament. "There is no other station like it in the world. British engineers have evaluated this design and rejected it as unstable." James Moore, a vice president for power systems at Westinghouse, concurred: "The Soviets racked up an open car going 100 miles an hour. We drive 30 miles an hour in a tank. We have taken the conservative approach...
...Accidental removal of four control rods at an experimental nuclear power reactor at Chalk River, Canada, near Ottawa, led to a partial meltdown of the reactor's uranium fuel core. A million gallons of radioactive water accumulated inside, but there were no accident-related injuries. Although negligible in comparison with last week's Soviet accident, it was the first known major malfunction of a nuclear power plant...