Hello,
thanks Bubblehead - you know a lot more than me i'm sure about reactors and such - but then i wrote it was highly polemic
I do not really know where i read the Bering strait reactor thing, one of the sources is Bellona net, but they have an agenda, as the pro nuclear industry has, so both not really neutral or independent. I have also read about it in several newspapers ( i remember the Time magazine, and the german "Spiegel"), must have been around 2000 - so this is indeed wrong ?
Anyway the Soviet method of disposing some of its reactors in the Kara sea, is not a myth.
I think Rickover is, despite of all that might be said against him, the one who is responsible for the highest grade of standards regarding reactor management, failsafe security and no nuclear accidents happening in the US Navy of the time.
It is said that the
Scorpion was not in a good shape when it made its last voyage, although i find this rather unlikely for a nuclear submarine of the time. Anyway its sinking was obviously not related to any reactor problem.
@Steamwake:
it was not only John Wayne who died of cancer, but a lot of others of the film team, after filming in this former test area and being exposed to the radiation. Remember the US military "tested" its own people while exposing them to nuclear surface tests.
Seth,
thanks for being patient with me, regarding reactors
you wrote
" ... one theory on what caused all the failsafes to misbehave involves some of the crystalline methane melting and turning into a gas. ..."
Yes, i already thought about such an occurrence, but i wondered what made the chrstylline structure "melt" -
There are only two possibilites imho, temperature and/or pressure. Usually a gas or oil reservoir is under pressure, so if you are lucky enough to hit a either resource, you are prepared. One thing is keeping the drilling fluid "heavy"/ballasted, the other is to temporarily shut the mud valves until you have ballasted and adapted the mud to the borehole pressure.
If you hit a reservoir vertically from above, there is an oil-gas cap above the oil, which is under pressure. You try to go through this cap without releasing pressure from the reservoir and enter the oil horizin below, since the cap pressure will help you to produce oil without pumping, until the pressure is so low that you will have to install a pump for further production.
sorry, have to leave, be back later
CF