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Any boyos watching this? Fantastic programme. It also has a podcast where the writer explains things. They really really did come very close to poisoning the whole of Asia.
In the spirit of reconciliation and happiness at the end of the Banter Era (RIP) and as a result of promotion I have cleared out my ignore list. Look forwards to reading your posts!
It's impossible to have a nuclear explosion in a reactor. One of the trickiest things about getting an atom bomb to work is keeping things together while at least a proportion of the uncontrolled chain reaction runs its course (even then less than a third of the fuel is used). That's why they use explosive compression, to give the core sufficient inwards momentum that it stays together at sufficient density for long enough. Without that, it blows itself apart too quickly and the chain reaction dissipates.
Those conditions do not exist within a nuclear reactor, where even if the fuel melts together, there is nothing to hold it there. The immediate area would be exposed to a lot of radiation and things would get very hot, but there would be no nuclear explosion (c.f. the two accidents involving the "demon core": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core ).
In accidents where reactors have blown up (e.g. Chernobyl, SL-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 ), the explosions have been caused by other things (often water/steam).
Point of order - 'thermonuclear' refers specifically to weapons including a fusion element, binding heavy isotopes of hydrogen to make helium (i.e. an H-bomb rather than an A-bomb). The materials/structures for this are not present in a reactor.
Hi Sheldon.
Please note: prior to hitting the post button, I've double checked for anything that could be construed as "Anti Semitic" and to the best of my knowledge it isn't. Anything deemed to be of a Xenophobic nature is therefore purely accidental or down to your own misconstruing.
It's impossible to have a nuclear explosion in a reactor. One of the trickiest things about getting an atom bomb to work is keeping things together while at least a proportion of the uncontrolled chain reaction runs its course (even then less than a third of the fuel is used). That's why they use explosive compression, to give the core sufficient inwards momentum that it stays together at sufficient density for long enough. Without that, it blows itself apart too quickly and the chain reaction dissipates.
Those conditions do not exist within a nuclear reactor, where even if the fuel melts together, there is nothing to hold it there. The immediate area would be exposed to a lot of radiation and things would get very hot, but there would be no nuclear explosion (c.f. the two accidents involving the "demon core": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core ).
In accidents where reactors have blown up (e.g. Chernobyl, SL-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 ), the explosions have been caused by other things (often water/steam).
Point of order - 'thermonuclear' refers specifically to weapons including a fusion element, binding heavy isotopes of hydrogen to make helium (i.e. an H-bomb rather than an A-bomb). The materials/structures for this are not present in a reactor.
Basically if they hadn't released the water in the tanks below the reactor, there would have been an enormous nuclear explosion which would have killed many people in and of itself and would have poisoned one of Asia's main water courses. Then you obvs have the fallout from the explosion which would have wafted across Asia and Europe. They released the water with about a day to spare.
Not quite. There would have been an enormous steam explosion which had the capability of distributing a lot more radioactive material over a much wider area.
Hhmm weird it doesnt want to embed. Search Youtube for "Prof. Richard Muller explaines nuclear meltdown and chernobyl"
In the spirit of reconciliation and happiness at the end of the Banter Era (RIP) and as a result of promotion I have cleared out my ignore list. Look forwards to reading your posts!
Them and the firefighters whose efforts to fight the blaze were pretty much suicidal.
I've mentioned it before but make no excuses for doing so again but Serhii Plokhy's recent book is an excellent account of both the disaster and the political context:
It's impossible to have a nuclear explosion in a reactor. One of the trickiest things about getting an atom bomb to work is keeping things together while at least a proportion of the uncontrolled chain reaction runs its course (even then less than a third of the fuel is used). That's why they use explosive compression, to give the core sufficient inwards momentum that it stays together at sufficient density for long enough. Without that, it blows itself apart too quickly and the chain reaction dissipates.
Those conditions do not exist within a nuclear reactor, where even if the fuel melts together, there is nothing to hold it there. The immediate area would be exposed to a lot of radiation and things would get very hot, but there would be no nuclear explosion (c.f. the two accidents involving the "demon core": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core ).
In accidents where reactors have blown up (e.g. Chernobyl, SL-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 ), the explosions have been caused by other things (often water/steam).
Point of order - 'thermonuclear' refers specifically to weapons including a fusion element, binding heavy isotopes of hydrogen to make helium (i.e. an H-bomb rather than an A-bomb). The materials/structures for this are not present in a reactor.
Shamed! Shamed! Shamed by Guthers.
Lets just say that by thermonuclear explosion I simply meant really big, feck off explosion.
On a side note, I was googling about radiation sickness and found this. It's very good for showing the scale of Chernobyl and the actual threat of some of the other radiation sources around the world.
Spoiler alert: transmitters and mobiles are not a threat because they don't emit ionizing radiation. And if people are still worried about that then they should absolutely never fly. Or eat a banana.
I was just about to log on to explain it to you in exactly the same way, but he pipped me to it.
Shamed! Shamed! Shamed by Jeera!
In my defence I think in the program they actually said "thermal explosion", or that's what I have just got from the podcast, and I wasn't paying proper attention at that point, got the "therm" bit and filled in the rest.
Yes, wife and I have been watching it, didn't know about the podcast will download that as it sounds interesting.
This weeks was horrific, seeing those suffering from radiation sickness and hearing how they would die.
The podcast really provides so much rich contextual information. Can't recommend it enough.
Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
Must admit, I'm in 2 minds if i like the actors speaking in regular English accents versus Russian-english, but apart from that thoroughly enjoyed it.
I just cant belive the attitudes of some of the government keeping things under wraps and preventing the spread of "misinformation".
They actually go into the accent thing in the first podcast. If I recall correctly they said that actors end up acting the accent and not the lines. Basically they thought it was more engrossing to have a collection of different accents, from English to vaguely Eastern European sounding.
No American accents though.
Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
In my defence I think in the program they actually said "thermal explosion", or that's what I have just got from the podcast, and I wasn't paying proper attention at that point, got the "therm" bit and filled in the rest.
Dunno.
Something about a heat thing, a centre, pressure and water.