Not good.
I've learned that in 2009, BP drilled the deepest oil well in the world, at 35,055 feet (more than 6 1/2 miles). I'm wondering if it would be feasible to include, beneath all new nuclear reactors, a shaft into which out-of-control fuel rods could be ejected in the event of a meltdown. Certainly, doing so would be a last resort, but when I think about which I would prefer; melting fuel rods in my backyard or those same fuel rods more than six miles under it, the answer comes to me with remarkable clarity.
I don't know how much it would cost to drill such a shaft, but I'm inclined to think that it would be far less expensive than drilling an actual oil well for a couple reasons. First, there would be no need to worry about locating and eventually recovering oil from it. Second, although I imagine that non-trivial effort would go into finding suitable locations for them, drilling the actual shafts would not require the accuracy of an oil well (maybe this is just an aspect of the first point).
Although I haven't heard of it, the idea may not be new - it seems obvious enough. Either way, here is an overview of how it might work.
1) All new nuclear reactors would include an underlying fuel rod ejection shaft as shown below. A plug made of concrete, lead (shielded from the heat in some way) or other suitable material would be placed at the bottom of the shaft. But, then again, maybe no plug is necessary. Maybe the hot fuel rods would just melt through the concrete too, and if they keep melting their way downward, probably all the better.
2) If the reactor threatens to meltdown, the out-of-control fuel rods would be ejected into the shaft by some automated means. Maybe the automation could be nothing more sophisticated than the rods simply melting through the bottom of the reaction chamber as shown below.
3) Finally, additional concrete (or other material) is pumped into the shaft to seal in the rods after they cool (if they ever cool).
0 comments:
Post a Comment