On Mon, 10 Dec 2018 18:36:44 -0000, dpb wrote:

On 12/10/2018 9:42 AM, Bruce Farquhar wrote:
...

Agreed, all I'm saying is they do go wrong.

But _NO_ commercial reactors have "exploded" from the fuel having had an
uncontrolled chain reaction.

Chernobyl was so destructive because the Russky's didn't build a
containment structure to save $$ and so the fire melted the housing
structure (essentially just a "Butler building") and thus let the smoke
plume disperse the gaseous and light fission products. But, it was a
conventional fire, not a nuclear explosion that was the event.

Would a nuclear explosion have been a lot worse? Twice as bad? 50 million times as bad? Would it be similar to a nuclear weapon? Or is there a big difference in yield?