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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Morris F. Osborne, Jack L. Collins, Richard A. Lorenz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 78 | Number 2 | August 1987 | Pages 157-169
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A33994
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fission product release from fully irradiated light water reactor fuel under accident conditions and the chemical forms and behavior of the released material have been studied at high temperatures. This work has emphasized release from commercial fuels, but tracer-level tests using specific fission product species have been used in efforts to clarify chemical behavior. The specimens were heated in an induction furnace in flowing steam at temperatures of 1700 to 2300 K. The fractional releases of krypton, iodine, and cesium increased with temperature, reaching maxima of nearly 60% in 20 min. The release of tellurium varied strongly with the extent of cladding oxidation and approached that of cesium for completely oxidized cladding. In addition to some structural material, the major chemical forms in the furnace effluent appeared to include CsI, CsOH, silver, antimony, and tellurides of cesium and tin. The fractional releases of the volatile fission products correlated with the amount of fuel porosity, and the masses of aerosol collected increased with test temperature and oxidation. Comparison of our results with several fission product release models showed agreement ranging from good to poor.