Re:Nuclear startup Oklo gets thumbs-down from regulators
by PaulHoule on Friday January 14, 2022 @09:14PM
(#29942941)
Sodium fires are often flashy but not that bad. They look scary because they form hot aerosol particles that radiate a lot of light and heat. It's nothing like a hydrogen fire you might walk into before you see or feel anything.
Sometimes you spill a few liters of sodium and it goes poof and makes some caustic aerosol you have to clean up. If the heat exchanger with a carbon dioxide secondary pops it forms a crust that will probably keep the carbon dioxide inside. Even if a water tertiary heat exchanger develops a pinhole leak the reaction happens on a 2-d surface and develops more slowly than you might think it would.
Russians documented hundreds of fires at a reactor in the 1970s most of which were little poofs, they kept calm and carried on because the prize is clean energy to power civilization for 1000s of years.
Sometimes you spill a few liters of sodium and it goes poof and makes some caustic aerosol you have to clean up. If the heat exchanger with a carbon dioxide secondary pops it forms a crust that will probably keep the carbon dioxide inside. Even if a water tertiary heat exchanger develops a pinhole leak the reaction happens on a 2-d surface and develops more slowly than you might think it would.
https://www.fireengineering.com/leadership/dry-extinguishing...
https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/21330020
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6669413-xoXD4J/
Russians documented hundreds of fires at a reactor in the 1970s most of which were little poofs, they kept calm and carried on because the prize is clean energy to power civilization for 1000s of years.