Re: Bacteria in Nuclear Reactors

["Mike Bohan" <mike.bohan@yale.edu>]

        Reply to:   RE>>Bacteria in Nuclear Reactors

Hi RadSafers,

Just last night, on the Discovery Channel, they did a whole show on the flora and fauna surrounding the mid ocean vents in the Pacific.  There are whole communities of bacteria and animals which live off the chemical energy of the normally toxic hydrogen sulfide which rises in plumes from volcanic vents on the ocean floor and the dissolved oxygen from the water.  The bacteria apparently serve as the bottom of the food chain around the vents and survive quite happily in water with temperatures well above 100 degrees centigrade and pressures of 1,000's of pounds per square inch!

I guess we better hope they don't find their way into the primary coolant loops;  they're finding that these areas support some of the fastest growing biota known on earth!