Reply To: Energy Output – MW & GW

[zapkitty]

delt0r wrote: A 1MW plant would have the neutron power of 2kW @ .2% neutron power, even @ .02% its still 200W of neutrons. A *lot* more than “radiation output of a classroom of kindergarteners”.

Ah… as far as the kindergarten class is concerned I believe Lerner-hakase was speaking of the level of activation of the core when it is replaced after service… not the interior of the reactor during operation 🙂

So the proper comparison would be the used core sitting on the teacher’s desk … not… (beryllium, y’know) and the classroom full of kids.

delt0r wrote: E. Lerner has said this even in his first Google talk. There is a cool down time of hours/days after switch off before you can get your hands inside.

~9 hours, actually.

The culprit is C11… which is B11 that did not quite make to C12. It has a half-life of 20 minutes and decays back to B11 via positron emission. ~9 hours after shutdown you can open the reactor with no radiation hazard. Or you can open the reactor earlier if you need a free PET scan 🙂

It’s not that the C11 would be super-hazardous in and of itself… the ~9 hour wait is in order to adhere to Lerner’s apparent protocol of “less than background radiation.”

delt0r wrote: Rare side reactions matter.

Hmmm… as you seem to have misunderstood what I was trying to get at (my fault, very probably 🙂 ) perhaps we’re talking past each other?