re: #293 Kosh’s Shadow

Did you forget the sarc tag?
Chernobyl had no containment, and was a graphite reactor. Those have a “positive temperature coefficient” - when they heat up, the reaction speeds up as well.
Most reactors are much safer.
Water cooled reactors have a negative temperature coefficient. When they heat, the water doesn’t moderate (slow down) the neutrons as well, and the reaction slows.
In the late 1950s or early 1960s, they built a reactor with a “fast negative temperature coefficient”. They drained the water, and the reactor shut down immediately without overheating.

And we’ve done tests of reactors similar to the current designs, simulating a loss of cooling accident. The result was not as bad as predicted.

I didnt figure I would need a sarc tag. You’re getting way to technical for me. Seriously though, they were experimenting and had only 9 cooling rods in place and they were taking the 9th one out when it went. The US DOT finally got the report a couple months after the fact and when Hanaford held a press conference, only a half dozen newsies showed up because it was all ‘old news’ and therefore not really important. The only thing the newspeople wanted were the death stats.