In message , Chris Hogg
writes
On Sun, 20 Mar 2011 11:49:57 +0000, hugh ] wrote:

In message
,
Andy Dingley writes
On Mar 19, 5:19*pm, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

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

Firstly they're not. Only some recent designs, very few of which have
yet been built (at commercial sizes)

Secondly the reactors at Fukushima are BWRs, not PWRs.
I was reading p on Windscale today having more than a passing interest
in that particular accident. It was air cooled and they put out the fire
by - switching off the fan!!

errr...well, yes they did do that, but they also pumped in a very
large amount of water. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire

That was to cool it, not to put out the fire.
--
hugh
"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, Or who said it, Even if
I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own
common sense." Buddha