Re: Whats the sodium for?

[John Stanton <jjs3rd@ix.netcom.com>]

Yes to all the below.  But one of the neatest things is to drop a pure
chunk of sodium in a beaker of water and just watch the fire works
resulting from the breaking down of water to its component elements.

Oh the fun of chemistry class.

JJS

Henry Harper wrote:
> 
> >
> >   >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