Thread: Radioactive Power Plants

I recently saw National Geographic's movie special called "Aftermath: Population
Zero" where they showed how the world will become if all humans suddenly disappeared.

Part of the movie they talked about how there are these radioactive rods which
can heat to 1000+ ^c if left uncooled, so if energy is gone then the cooling mechanism
fails, leaving the super heating rods to heat and explode, resulting in a massive
explosion per power plant(I think they said something like 500 times bigger
explosion than Hiroshima and Nagasaki's).

Question is - Can't they just link up the energy that these hot rods produce to the
cooling mechanisms.. it'll take some time before the machinery fails... better then nothing, eh?

Another solution is digging a deep hole which the hot rods will fall into in case of
major problem, this way the demage will be MUCH less severe..

Hell, why won't they move the power plants underground and live risk free(for us, not them)??

Originally Posted by Hanuka

I recently saw National Geographic's movie special called "Aftermath: Population
Zero" where they showed how the world will become if all humans suddenly disappeared.

Part of the movie they talked about how there are these radioactive rods which
can heat to 1000+ ^c if left uncooled, so if energy is gone then the cooling mechanism
fails, leaving the super heating rods to heat and explode, resulting in a massive
explosion per power plant(I think they said something like 500 times bigger
explosion than Hiroshima and Nagasaki's).

Question is - Can't they just link up the energy that these hot rods produce to the
cooling mechanisms.. it'll take some time before the machinery fails... better then nothing, eh?

Another solution is digging a deep hole which the hot rods will fall into in case of
major problem, this way the demage will be MUCH less severe..

Hell, why won't they move the power plants underground and live risk free(for us, not them)??

Complete nonsense. A nuclear power plant cannot explode like Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

It's not a normal nuke plant(I think). They keep those rods in a very cool
liquid cos if they are left uncooled they super-heat very rapidly within a very short
period of time and then they explode, massivly. - Sending fallout and radioactive
material all over.

They said that there are alot of these plants in the US, and around 23 of them in Asia.

It's not that they explode. It's that they irradiate a large area around the plant with neutron radiation.

Originally Posted by Numsgil

It's not that they explode. It's that they irradiate a large area around the plant with neutron radiation.

No, they don't.

I looked up the Wikipedia article on Aftermath Population Zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterma...pulation_Zero+
First of all, its a ridiculous premise for a tv program, especially for a supposedly scientific organization like National Geographic. It's about what happens when all the people on earth suddenly disappear. Airplanes fall out of the sky, and that sort of thing.

They got the nuclear plant fuel pool thing completely wrong. What would actually happen is the fuel in the pool would boil, then when it dried out, the fuel cladding would melt releasing the radioactive material inside. (No neutron radiation, just alpha, beta, gamma.) There isn't really anything in there to catch fire or explode.

Why would anybody even worrry about such a thing if all humans are gone from the earth?

The suggestion to bury the spent fuel underground is good. In the USA it's called Yucca Mountain. But the so-called environmentalists including our illustrious Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and our illustrious President 0Bama don't think that's a good idea.

Now this is a funny thread.

WHO CARES!!!!!

Ok, my dog might...but again...WHO CARES

I was thinking of a scenario which many people will disappear, not all.
Like in a nuke war, many will die; but there's a chance that some will survive..
Those people will care.

Also, by moving the radioactive rod plants underground or having a fail-safe mechanism
like dropping the rods underground if something goes terribly wrong it may save
of people in the current days.

One can simply hack into these plants and cause massive overload and if it doesn't
have a fail safe mechanism many will die.

Originally Posted by Hanuka

I was thinking of a scenario which many people will disappear, not all.
Like in a nuke war, many will die; but there's a chance that some will survive..
Those people will care.

Also, by moving the radioactive rod plants underground or having a fail-safe mechanism
like dropping the rods underground if something goes terribly wrong it may save
of people in the current days.

One can simply hack into these plants and cause massive overload and if it doesn't
have a fail safe mechanism many will die.

Ok, well many people and all people are a bit different. Then again those who do survive chances are won't be all that close to major cities or location where nuclear power plants melting down would be a major issue. I'm going to go with, if they get past the first year they'll be just fine.

Originally Posted by Hanuka

I was thinking of a scenario which many people will disappear, not all.
Like in a nuke war, many will die; but there's a chance that some will survive..
Those people will care.

I think they would care a lot more about the huge cloud of radioactive fallout downwind of the target zone, plus the coming nuclear winter and the destruction of the infrastructure which they depend upon for the survival of their society.