How can a nuclear power plant create a hydrogen explosion?

Anders Lindman said:
Only the reactor chamber needs to be different in a fuel cell reactor than in a nuclear reactor. The rest of the entire power plant could function in the same way (steam driving electrical generators and so on). So very few people would know the difference even among all those who work in the power plants and even those who design and build them.
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I'm pretty sure workers, engineers, and nuclear regulators look at the reactor. It's kinda important.
 
Anders Lindman said:
Zirconium oxidation from steam? LMAO. How gullible can people get? How difficult would it be to buy some scientists to claim that steam causes zirconium to oxidize at an alarming rate? :rolleyes: Watch out! Don't expose your stainless steel boiling pots to steam! Lest they oxidize and produce massive amounts of hydrogen.
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I had a nice witty reply written out but this is just too ridiculous even for that. Stundie nomination coming up!
 
Anders Lindman said:
I saw one news report where they said that hadn't found much radiation at all! Only tiny a amount, which could be from all sorts of things instead of from the nuclear reactor.
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So what about the vast number of OTHER reports that say radiation HAD been found?

This like GW denial: find one scientist that says no to GW, so then the huge remaining mass of others MUST be wrong.
 
Anders Lindman said:
That sounds like a load of crock to me.
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Moved (again) to AAH or not, I still maintain that the idea that "a load of crock" is an actual phrase is just wrong! In fact I'd go so far as to say that such an idea is a bushel of bowls! A veritable cellar full of sippy cups!:mad:

Do your worst, Moderators.
 
Anders Lindman said:
Sounds suspicious to me.
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That's because you've never bothered to learn anything about the topics you pontificate about.

Not all views and opinions are created equally. Your opinion is less valuable than the opinion of a chemist of physicist. This is because they spend years studying science and you just look at Youtube videos.
 
mike3 said:
So what about the vast number of OTHER reports that say radiation HAD been found?

This like GW denial: find one scientist that says no to GW, so then the huge remaining mass of others MUST be wrong.
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Experts and media have essentially been FORCED to come up with at least some radiation measurements.
 
JohnG said:
Moved (again) to AAH or not, I still maintain that the idea that "a load of crock" is an actual phrase is just wrong! In fact I'd go so far as to say that such an idea is a bushel of bowls! A veritable cellar full of sippy cups!:mad:

Do your worst, Moderators.
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I take it that you have English as your mother tongue. But I will still use the expression I think. Another expression I use sometimes is 'blown to Kingdom Kong' instead of to kingdom come. A bit silly I know. :D The idea is that Kingdom Kong is like going millions of years back in evolution.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
At high temperatures, zirconium in the fuel cladding reacts with water splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen. An explosive mixture of gasses.

/end thread
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Apart from the fact that the oxygen bounds with the zirconuim to form an oxide rather than floating off with the Hydrogen, this is pretty much right.

Zr + 2 H2O + heat => ZrO2 + 2 H2

Apparently Uranium is even worse, and when hot will rip the oxygens off of water and oxidise faster than zirconium does.

It'd pretty much a classic exothermal oxidation/reduction reaction.

Most modern reactors have recombiners to bled off and oxidize the any hydrogen safely.
 
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One way to generate hydrogen is to shoot steam over a plate of hot steel.
The steel oxidises and the hydrogen can be trapped.

So the generation of hydrogen in a damaged but still hot nucleair plant is not only logical, but even to be expected.
 
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When the fuel rods got hot enough, the zircalloy cladding reacts with water to liberate lots of hydrogen gas (the oxygen combined with the zirconium). The hydrogen generation increases presssure inside the reactor vessel and containment so the techs did the only thing they could, since systems to deal with the hydrogren were down due to lack of power, and vented it. It mixed with regular air and eventually got to the right concentration to explode given a source of ignition.

The breakdown of the cladding liberates trapped radioactive gases that normally would be contained in the fuel element. I understand that gases like Krypton 85 and Xenon 133 get liberated into the hydrogen and when things get vented out they go. Xe-133 is a gamma emitter and Kr-85 is a beta emitter. They are heavy noble gases so they sink towards the ground and tend to be slow to move (pooling in low spots) though the wind does move them which I understand is where the spotty rad readings might have been partially coming from.

Xe-133 has a half life of like 5 days while Kr-85 has a half life of 10 years.

Let's not forget the other radioactive fission products, but I am not going into them.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Apart from the fact that the oxygen bounds with the zirconuim to form an oxide rather than floating off with the Hydrogen, this is pretty much right.

Zr + 2 H2O + heat => ZrO2 + 2 H2

Apparently Uranium is even worse, and when hot will rip the oxygens off of water and oxidise faster than zirconium does.

It'd pretty much a classic exothermal oxidation/reduction reaction.

Most modern reactors have recombiners to bled off and oxidize the any hydrogen safely.
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Ok, but the use of zirconium in the reactor must be because that's the only material that works. From a safety perspective the use of zirconium seems dangerous. :eek:
 
Anders Lindman said:
From a safety perspective the use of zirconium seems dangerous. :eek:
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Not true, zircaloy has an excellent track record.

However, the nuclear industry has not been sleeping for the last 50 years and is always looking to improve all aspects of the business.

"Although it has had a very good track record of safe use in nuclear reactors, zircaloy becomes susceptible to failure over the long term. As a result, fuel rods are often taken out of service even though they may have a substantial amount of fuel remaining to produce energy.

To improve the resiliency, research has focused on finding a material that can withstand the conditions in a nuclear reactor core. "Many things like exposure to water and radiation degrade cladding," said David Carpenter, a researcher in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

With the new material, silicon carbide fibers would be wound into a composite tube that is the same size and shape as traditional zircaloy cladding. The advantage to using the new material is that silicon carbide has several characteristics that make it well suited to the reactor core environment. It has excellent strength at high temperatures, works well with water, has very low neutron absorption and resists radiation damage, according to researchers at MIT."

http://www.energybiz.com/magazine/article/196201/boosting-nuclear-fuel
 
Skwinty said:
Not true, zircaloy has an excellent track record.

However, the nuclear industry has not been sleeping for the last 50 years and is always looking to improve all aspects of the business.

"Although it has had a very good track record of safe use in nuclear reactors, zircaloy becomes susceptible to failure over the long term. As a result, fuel rods are often taken out of service even though they may have a substantial amount of fuel remaining to produce energy.

To improve the resiliency, research has focused on finding a material that can withstand the conditions in a nuclear reactor core. "Many things like exposure to water and radiation degrade cladding," said David Carpenter, a researcher in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

With the new material, silicon carbide fibers would be wound into a composite tube that is the same size and shape as traditional zircaloy cladding. The advantage to using the new material is that silicon carbide has several characteristics that make it well suited to the reactor core environment. It has excellent strength at high temperatures, works well with water, has very low neutron absorption and resists radiation damage, according to researchers at MIT."

http://www.energybiz.com/magazine/article/196201/boosting-nuclear-fuel
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Except that it causes hydrogen explosions. Not only in the Japanese nuclear reactor recently but also in the Three Mile Island accident. Not the kind of safety I would want in a nuclear power plant.
 
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