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[–] 103 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (23 children)

if it looks that hot, fission is pretty active and a lot of particles are coming your way. better put it under water and attach a turbine to the vessel, and a generator to the shaft

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    Ahhh water. Blocks alpha particles. Disables magnets. Is there anything this wondrous liquid can't do?

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Depends on the amount of compression you’re trying to achieve, the water’s temperature, and your definition of “easy”. Near freezing, ice is compressible. Because the increased pressure causes the freezing point to rise, which causes it to melt. And liquid water takes up less space than ice.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Be in one fraction at once. H2O consist of differerent quantum-mechanical portions: para-water and ortho-water.

    And it only gets weirder.

    paljastusNo. Don't google para-hydrogen. You will break your brain.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    If you reverse a magnet it makes water more west

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    this is how 238Pu ceramic pellets for space probe generators look like, no fission required just alpha decay. If it was fission, it wouldn't need to glow like this entire time because you can just turn it off

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Doesn’t this contaminate the water?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    my comment is oversimplified and partly joke, but nuclear power plants use mostly uranium fuel pellets, which are inserted in metal fuel rods and these into another metal container called fuel assemblies, before the are lowered into the water pool, so fuel and water don't touch each other, and the vapor cycle is a closed system

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    From what I remember, the water that is near the fissile material is in its own closed loop tank and has heat exchangers that transfer heat to another water loop that goes to the turbines.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    In a pressurized water reactor, yes. In boiling water reactor, steam is formed in the reactor vessel and is sent directly to the turbines. While in operation, the turbine area is too radioactive for human presence. Fortunately, the radioactive byproducts carried in the steam are all very short lived, so it only takes a few minutes cool off.

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