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Re:Chernobyl's legacy 30 years on by hga on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @03:31PM (#11574835)
The 2nd design flaw is the positive void coefficient due to it using light water as a coolant and graphite as a moderator. In its scheme, the light water is a neutron absorber, and if steam voids form in it, there's less water absorbing neutrons. More neutrons -> more split atoms -> more heat -> more/bigger voids, this repeats until the reactor sufficiently disassembles itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_coefficient

Such designs are illegal in the US, one of the reasons all but the latest version of the CANDU reactor can't be used here.

Re:Chernobyl's legacy 30 years on by InclinedPlane on Tuesday April 26, 2016 @08:02PM (#11576816)
Yup. Means you can use lower enriched uranium since the reactor is primarily graphite moderated and merely water cooled (one of the most "efficient" designs possible), but it's unstable by nature and potentially very dangerous, as we've seen.