Re: Russia: RBMK design and Religion.

[Harald Weiss <weiss@ki.comcity.de>]

Kerembaev@cs.com schrieb:
>> 
>>  ... The "bad"
>>  behaviour of this design has been known for many years before the Chernobyl
>>  accident.
>> 
> 
> Who knew??? that RBMK had "bad" design or behavior.
> The only design flaw - design of the emergency rods tips, which led to the
> accident, has been discovered after the accident.

I had been working at the Kraftwerk Union (KWU) from 1978 to 1982. It
was then when our reactor physicists stated that the RBMK would not be
suitable for licensing in Western-Germany, due to lack of inherent
security.

> The positive temperature coefficient is not a design flaw but a boiling
> reactor's feature.
> There were and are many boiling reactors all around the world.
> 

Quite right. But the BWR is water-moderated and increase in power output
leads to a boil-up which in turn causes a decrease in moderation greater
than the increase due to the positive temperature coefficient. This way
the reactor stabilizes itself. This holds not true for the
graphite-moderated reactor.

> I do not see what an Islamic republic has to do with nuclear export
> restrictions.
> In the US, as well as in any civilized country, discrimination on base of
> religion is ILLEGAL. If religion shell play the role in RUSSIA-IRAN relations
> than Russia never would go with that contract, particularly during the war in
> Chechnya, which is also has nothing to do with religion but everything with a
> new and very old politics.
> It is just very sad to see how religion hysteria are used by politicians.
> 

Very true, indeed. In western Europe we are a bit concerned about the
following: In some (not all) islamic countries, Iran being one of them,
there are political forces who try and use the peoples devotion to
religion for leading it into a militant anti-US, anti-european and
anti-christian politic, even including terrorism. That's why many of us
are not delighted about exports that endanger non-proliferation and
facilitate production of weapon-grade material for these nations.

Greetings, Harald

---
Harald Weiss (weiss@ki.comcity.de)
Preetzer Strasse 263
D-24147 Kiel (Germany)
..


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