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A comment on Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?. Parent comment

Re:Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radi... by AI_WAIFU on Sunday September 27, 2020 @09:50PM (#24612135)
I don't understand who's bright idea it was to use water as the primary coolant for a nuclear reactor. IIRC almost every single major nuclear incident has been caused or dramatically exacerbated by having it boil away or cause a steam explosion or mix with the ground water or chemically react with the fuel rods to produce additional heat and hydrogen gas which also explodes.

Like just go through this list and count the number of times water was a good chunk of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...

There are multiple options that don't have this issue. For instance, if you use liquid lead the thing can sit around indefinitely with no active cooling. In fact you have the opposite problem, you need to keep heating the lead to prevent the whole reactor pool from freezing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-cooled_fast_reactor

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Re:Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radi... by nullc on Monday September 28, 2020 @07:42AM (#24615563)
Water certainly causes trouble. At least they're not cooled by something that explodes on contact with air or water!
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Re:Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radi... by GekkePrutser on Monday September 28, 2020 @08:36AM (#24615951)
Liquid metal reactors also have had their fair share of accidents despite their small presence.
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Re:Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radi... by AI_WAIFU on Monday September 28, 2020 @03:16PM (#24620259)
Of course, but a liquid lead reactor's failure modes don't usually involve a massive release of radioactivity all over the environment. Absolute worst case you'll get a meltdown and/or a coolant leak. But diligent materials choices should prevent an associated fire or steam explosions that would spread radioactive elements all over the place.

This isn't true with all liquid metal reactors though. Liquid sodium reactors have flammable radioactive coolant, and a coolant breach could be environmentally disastrous.

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