Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
You're talking, I think, about "Fast Breeder Reactors" such as the experimental one built at Dounraey in Scotland. The engineering problems are horrendous; because the plant operates at a much higher temperature than a conventional nuclear reactor it has to be cooled by liquid sodium rather than water, and the technology for that essentially had to be "invented" from scratch.
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I'm reminded of a conversation I had some years ago with an old nuclear worker who had worked on the fast breeder program for the AEC/US Naval Reactors in Idaho back in the nineteen fifties.
He said the bolts in the reactor head had been frozen by the high temperatures, and to get them lose they would squirt water on them and the residual sodium would explode and break them lose.