[ RadSafe ] Arnie Gundersen - Another One Who Interviews on Russia Today and Floods the Net

[Neil, David M]

Without addressing the plausibility of the scenario initiation - one of the considerations of fuel storage is preventing that, especially with known seismic hazards - the release of energy could plausibly amplify the explosion. Dumping energy into air will heat it enough to produce explosive expansion; you've seen it happen, usually around tall dark clouds in the summer, when you can hear it for miles.

Dave Neil

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Simpson
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 6:43 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Arnie Gundersen - Another One Who Interviews on Russia Today and Floods the Net

Arnie Gundersen has been all over the web and the news sharing his 
opinions on just what is going on.

I am not a nuclear engineer, but most of what he says seems plausible 
enough to me.  The actual claim was that a hydrogen gas explosion in 
Unit 3's fuel storage pond banged enough fuel rods into each other to 
initiate a prompt criticality, which resulted in another 
near-simultaneous blast, which made for a much larger event than it 
otherwise would have been.

The question I have of Mr. Gundersens and his assertion is, assuming we 
did have a prompt criticality in part of the fuel stored there, how does 
that result in such a violent explosion? That would get us a lot of heat 
and radiation, for sure, but how does that translate into an explosion 
unless there is some other vector present like water to flash into steam 
(and it does not look much like a steam explosion to me)?

-Tom


On 04/28/2011 03:41 AM, Roger Helbig wrote:
> Does anyone know anything about this claimed nuclear engineer who postulates
> a criticality incident as causing Reactor #3 explosion at this video link -
> several other videos from Faire Wind Associates - another new voice in the
> game - http://vimeo.com/22865967
>
> http://www.fairewinds.com/content/who-we-are
>

_______________________________________________
You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list

Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood the RadSafe rules. These can be found at: http://health.phys.iit.edu/radsaferules.html

For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings visit: http://health.phys.iit.edu