Word: reactors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nightmare that has nagged scientists since the dawn of nuclear power. A cooling-system pipe ruptures. The temperature of the nuclear reactor's core fuel shoots up, melting its zircaloy shielding. Finally the heat becomes so intense that the entire domed building disintegrates, leaking out a cloud of radioactive fallout that kills tens of thousands of people...
Also in the works is a major expansion of the breeder reactor program, which has been stalled in the U.S. because of questions about reactor safety and concern over the breeder's role in the production-and proliferation-of plutonium, a highly toxic substance that can be used in weapons. The Soviets have a breeder reactor, which is used both to generate electricity and to desalinate water, on line at the Caspian Sea port of Shevchenko. They have a 600,000-kw breeder under construction near Beloyarsk in the Urals. They plan to build even more of these reactors...
Soviet scientists insist that nuclear reactors are safer than other types of power plants and claim that many of the safety devices accepted as essential in the West are unnecessary. Their attitude can be unsettling to those who assume that even the best reactors must be treated with respect. At the Kurchatov, for example, scientists seemed blissfully unconcerned as visiting journalists leaned against flimsy railings to gaze down into an open experimental pool reactor and marvel at the blue radiation glow that emanated from its fuel rods. While the radiation itself was under water and posed no hazard, a dropped...
...have been appalled at the low level on which the nuclear energy debate has been conducted. When dozens of workers are killed in an oil refinery explosion, no one suggests that we abandon the use of fossil fuels. When a water pipe in a nuclear reactor develops a hairline fracture, hysteria follows. Nuclear reactor safety is a highly quantitative and technical matter. It is high time that responsible journalism calls for rational discourse...
...nuclear plant currently proposed for Montague, Massachusetts, a town in the Connecticut River Valley. The Hampshire authors investigate with impressive detail and strong factual arguments the possible scenario. Included are chapters on how the meltdown might occur (following several sections succinctly explaining the workings of a reactor), how radioactivity would be released, an estimate of both short-and long-term casualties, and an estimate of the effects of radioactivity on the environment, specifically food and water supplies...