GB wrote:
Nightjar "cpb"@" wrote:
What do you not understand about UK stations being of a different
design from the BWR in Japan and not needing the pumps that were
the only critical thing damaged by the tsunami?
The pumps and the standby generators. And when they did ship some
generators in the plugs weren't right.
Strictly speaking, the pumps were not damaged, only the generators to
power them. The pumps ran for eight hours on battery backup. However,
I was trying to simplify things to make them easier for Harry to
understand and the point I was making is that our power stations do
not need the pumps in the first place.

I missed your post giving reasons why you think that the UK's reactors
wouldn't need pumps. What's your reference, please? I must say I'm
sceptical.


PWR reactors are capabe of cooling the cores by convection alone in a
shutdown situation.

Think nuclear back boiler with gravity feed primary and aux pump when
its running hot.

In fact is remarkably crude is a nuclear reactor.

Its like a stove where if you open it up, it gets very hot.

If you shut off the air, it doesn't go out immediately. It's still hot.
However under those circs a gravity feed system is good enough to cool it.

And the water is heavily pressurised, so boiling wont happen at sane temps.