[ RadSafe ] Melting a reactor??

[Jerry Cohen]

I wonder why the NYT left out the part about melting through the earth to China?


Jerry Cohen





________________________________
From: Steven Dapra <sjd at swcp.com>
To: radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu
Sent: Sun, January 2, 2011 6:15:57 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Melting a reactor??

Jan. 2

    This quote is from an editorial page article written by Charles Faddis and 
published in the NY Times.

"But there's no way to quickly shut off a reactor: the heat that builds up 
inside it is so intense that even if something goes wrong, cooling water must 
continue to circulate through its systems for days before it is safe.

"If the cooling system malfunctions, even if the rest of the plant is operating 
safely, the heat will literally melt the reactor and its concrete containment 
shell, releasing radioactive gas into the atmosphere  in other words, a partial 
nuclear meltdown like that at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979."

    Is it true that reactor heat will melt the containment vessel ("shell")?

    The link to the Faddis' NYT article is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06Faddis.html?_r=1

Steven Dapra

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