Could an molten Earth tunneler really be built?

There's a difference between radioactive material and fissile material. That's why we select only certain types of material for creating nuclear weapons; others don't suffice.

Well, the DoE calls Chernobyl a meltdown, so... :)

It gets listed as a meltdown, or a partial meltdown as well. too.

snipped-for-privacy@gmx.co.uk (Chuck Stewart) wrote on 07.08.03 in :

Cite?

AFAIK it was a fire (spewing lots of fine particles into the air and all around, and being a devil of a mess for cleanup or even containment) and

TMI was supposed to be a meltdown (endangering the water table, except it turned out it didn't get that far down - at least that was said back when

- it's been a while, after all, that was before Chernobyl).

(And both were supposed to have been caused by incompetent personnel.)

Kai

...

They say the CMBR expresses the pressure waves of a sound. I kind of figure it is along the same lines...

David A. Smith

Buh?

Large sections of the core melted. That's a meltdown. The uncontrolled reaction in the core is what released the heat that ruptured the fuel components, which then caused a steam explosion that destroyed the core. The fire was the result of the bad, bad things going on inside the reactor, not the cause.

TMI was a meltdown, a partial one. For various reasons, there wasn't enough coolant in the reactor to cover the core, and the exposed portions of it melted.

To put it lightly, yes, although the RMBK design as Chernobyl was hideously unsafe to begin with.