this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Everyone loves sodium cooled reactors until they have to deal with a loss of coolant casualty.
I've never worked or even been to a power plant. What's that mean? It sounds like a mess.
Basically it means that you lose the ability to control reactor temperature. Sodium cooled reactors general have a positive thermal coefficient for reactivity, meaning when temperature increases the reactor power goes up.
When you lose cooling your temperature rises, which results in increased reactor power which results in increased temperature which results in power which ... in a self reinforcing loop until a melt down occurs and everyone gets Chernobyled.
Even if the reactor isn't susceptible to this cycle, liquid sodium is a solid at relatively low temperatures. So in some situations the liquid sodium will stop circulating and then start to cool and solidify. This effectively blocks the cooling pipes and it is very difficult to get the sodium heated up enough to liquefy and restore cooling circulation. This can again lead to getting Chernobyled.
A well done, well salted mess
You could say the same thing of cars (car crashes), food (weight gain, heart attacks) and salads (salmonella.)