Thin Safety Margin (eBook)

The SEFOR Super-Prompt-Critical Transient Experiments, Ozark Mountains, Arkansas, 1970-71

Geren Collis Geren, Havens Jerry Havens (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
144 Seiten
Arkansas Scholarly Editions (Verlag)
978-1-61075-749-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Thin Safety Margin charts the history of SEFOR, a twenty-megawatt reactor that operated for three years in the rural Ozark Mountains of Arkansas as part of an internationally sponsored program designed to demonstrate the Doppler effect in plutonium-oxide-fueled fast reactors. Authors Jerry Havens and Collis Geren draw upon this history to assess the accidental explosion risk inherent in using fast reactors to reduce the energy industry s carbon dioxide emissions.If a sufficiently powerful fast-neutron explosion were to cause the containment of a reactor such as SEFOR s to fail, the reactor s radiotoxic plutonium fuel could vaporize and escape into the surrounding environment, resulting in a miles-wide swath of destruction. The demonstration that the Doppler effect could prevent limited runaway reactivity in the event of an accident or natural disaster proved a critical development in producing safe nuclear technology. But while SEFOR was hailed as a breakthrough in nuclear safety, Havens and Geren s examination of the project, including the partial SCRAM that occurred in late 1970, confirms experts concerns regarding the limits of the Doppler effect and presents a compelling argument for caution in adopting fast reactors like SEFOR to reduce carbon emissions.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.8.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• ISBN-10: 1-61075-749-1 / 1610757491
• ISBN-13: 978-1-61075-749-2 / 9781610757492