RE: Whats the sodium for?

[Henry Harper <hah@srv.net>]

>
>   >stem. Liquid sodium is an excellent heat conductor - it is used on some
>   >nuclear sumbarines for cooling reactors.
>
> Only the Sovs tried using sodium as the primary coolant.  It was a foolish
> and fatal mistake.  They were always willing to take risks that we wouldn't.
> Sometimes they paid off, such as with titanium pressure hulls.  The sodium
> boats were *extremely* dangerous failures.
>

Again with the sodium thread!

I must disagree with the "foolish and fatal mistake" characterization of liquid 
sodium as a primary coolant. You might want to come visit EBR-II at the 
Argonne-West site west of Idaho Falls, ID. This reactor (now in the process of 
decommissioning thanks to funding cuts) demonstrated its *intrinsic safety* 
several years ago when (in a planned test) the coolant pumps were shut off. The 
sodium expanded with a small amount of additional heat and pushed the reactor 
core elements apart, safely shutting down the reactor. Contrast this with Three 
Mile Island, a loss of coolant flow in a pressurized water reactor system.

Feel free to contact my father, Dr. Henry Harper Jr. PhD (Nuclear Engineering, 
Texas A&M '76) for details on the safety and environmental features of 
sodium-cooled reactors and the metal fuel cycle process. He can be reached at 
henry.harper@anl.gov.

Now I didn't say that Alfas were safe, just that it wasn't the fault of sodium 
as primary coolant they weren't.

Henry Harper III
http://www.srv.net/~hah
1991 200 quattro, 90k, 10 sodium-filled valves
1988 GTI 16v, 179k, 8 sodium-filled valves