Word: reactors
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...government of Ukraine finally closed the Chernobyl nuclear reactor on Friday. Does this close the book on Soviet-era nuclear energy disasters...
Even so, there would be no salvation for the men whose duties placed them in the reactor control rooms and the turbine and machinery spaces behind the reactors. The flash flooding in the forward part of the Kursk would have caused the bow to drop, pitching the 14,000-ton boat into a steep dive with steam turbines still delivering power to its twin screws. In seconds, the sub would have pounded into the seabed some 350 ft. beneath the storm-driven surface of the Barents Sea with a shock that would have hurled survivors against equipment and bulkheads. Finally...
Having felt the sting of its radiation as far away as France and Sweden, the West was more than happy to pick up the tab for taking Chernobyl offline in December. But the Ukrainian plant's sole surviving reactor is only one of many Soviet-era, RMBK-type reactors still operating throughout Central and Eastern Europe - and that's a problem that'll likely loom for decades. President Leonid Kuchma announced the plant's final closure Monday to coincide with President Clinton's visit to the Ukraine. Washington will provide some $78 million in aid to secure the reactor that...
Radioactivity generated by the explosion will remain dangerous for thousands of years, while the concrete sarcophagus in which the damaged reactor is entombed is reportedly crumbling, and requires extensive work to avoid further radiation nightmares. But while it might have burned its fingers (and a lot more) at Chernobyl, the Ukraine government hasn't exactly sworn off nuclear energy. It had kept one of Chernobyl's four reactors operational until now, saying Western donors had failed to come through with aid promised to build two replacement reactors at Rivne and Khmelnitsky...
...enough to boost a spacecraft to a speed of 100 miles a second. It is also possible to build a nuclear-powered jet to do the same job, if the political objections to nuclear spacecraft can be overcome. The quantity of energy available from sunlight or from a nuclear reactor is large enough to take us on trips around our solar system, if we decide to spend the money to do it. We may or may not decide to build a 100-mile-a-second spacecraft within 100 years, but we know that it is technically possible. The cost...