(March 16, 2011 at 6:11 pm)Welsh cake Wrote:(March 16, 2011 at 2:13 pm)Chuck Wrote: Does anyone have any reference to the heat output of the nuclear fuel in a Diichi unit 1 type reactor after the control rods are inserted?Where would one find this type of reactor? Which power stations is it, or are they currently operational/non-operational in?
That's the first reactor to blow up in Japan this last week. It was a GE MK 1 boiling water reactor. If they are cooling it by directly pumping seawater into the reactor vessel, then that could only go on for so long. Water does not take with it any of the stuff dissolved in it when it evaporates. Each release of radioactive steam from the reactor vessel is leaving behind more salt. Eventually the reactor vessel will clog and fill with salt. If they must still pump more water into it to cool it at that point I am not sure what will happen because the water will not be able to reach all parts of the fuel rod due to the salt. Perhaps the salt will melt and you have to somehow cool the liquid salt.
