“When comparing reactors, the USA reactors are pressure vessel reactors where an extra supply of ordinary water cools the fuel, whereas the RBMK reactor contains a solid called graphite. In USA reactors, the moderator heat is taken away in the steam to the boilers.”
-Chernobyl: A Nuclear Disaster
Almost. It’s not an “extra supply”–the coolant and the moderator are one and the same; the reactor is the boiler in a BWR (hence the “boiling”) and there isn’t (shouldn’t be) any steam in the primary coolant system in a PWR (because it’s under “pressure.”)
Filed under Chernobyl, International, Safety, Three Mile Island
Posted on April 30, 2006 by Stewart Peterson |
