Nuclear Disasters & Coolants

What happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima? What role did water coolant play in each one? Why do we use water as a coolant, given it has a liquid range of only 100 degrees Celsius?

Today's reactors, which are cooled by pressurized water, were viewed as a stop-gap technology until "breeder reactors" could be commercially deployed. Breeder reactors convert fertile material (such as Thorium) into fissile material (such as Uranium-233). It is not practical to operate a breeder reactor with water coolant, so a new coolant must be chosen. We examine two coolant options (from a field of many): liquid salt, and liquid sodium. What advantages do each have over water? Is one safer than the other?

References:

http://ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Alv... Alvin Weinberg IEEE Global History Network

   • ORNL Thorium Molten Salt Reactor Expe...   MSRE researchers interview near ORNL.

   • The Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor: Why ...   Google Tech Talk - Why didn't Th-MSR Happen?

   • Superfuel: Thorium, The Green Energy ...   Authors@Google - Richard Martin "Thorium: Superfuel"

   • Thorium Advocate Nuclear Tour of Argo...   Tour of Argonne National Lab

   • Sodium and water (Pond)   Sodium thrown in pond

   • Sodium (version 1) - Periodic Table o...   Sodium periodic table videos

http://vimeo.com/67628370 Nuclear Training - Choices and Consequences

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora%... Pandora's Box by BBC

   • Видео   Safety Profile of the EPR Reactor

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com... Minutes to Meltdown - Three Mile Island

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1832484/ Battle of Chernobyl

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775665/ Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontli... Inside Japan's Nuclear Disaster

   • Kirk Sorensen - Flibe Energy "LFTR De...   LFTR Development Strategy - Kirk Sorensen @ ThEC13

   • Fluorine - Periodic Table of Videos   Fluorine - Periodic Table of Videos

   • Видео   Hanford Story Overview

   • Видео   \iPhone 3GS battery exploded

   • Видео   Lithium - more violent reaction

   • iPhone lithium battery swollen almost...   iPhone lithium battery swollen almost exploding

   • Видео   Tesla Model S Catches Fire Near Seattle

   • LAX Laptop Fire   LAX Laptop Fire

   • Exploding Laptop - Lithium Ion Batter...   Exploding Laptop

http://atomicinsights.com/ Rod Adams Atomic Insights podcasts

   • Thorium: Kirk Sorensen at TEDxYYC   TEDxYYC Kirk Sorensen on Thorium

   • Видео   B&W mPower Small Modular Reactor Flythrough

   • traveling vlog california non working...   traveling vlog california non working wind turbines

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/... How Canada Became Leader in Fusion Energy

http://www.cleanbreak.ca/tag/general-... Clean Break - General Fusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chin...

   • Видео   Wind Turbines near San Diego

   • Wind turbine maintenance   Wind turbine maintenance

   • Cleaning Wind Turbine Blades   Cleaning Wind Turbine Blades

   • Aguieira dam hydroelectric power plan...   Aguieira dam hydroelectric power plant

   • Bill Gates: "I love nuclear."   Bill Gates "I love nuclear"

"Nuclear Disasters & Coolants" is Part 10 of "Th" thorium documentary series.