this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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Doesn’t this contaminate the water?
From what I remember, the water that is near the fissile material is in its own closed loop tank and has heat exchangers that transfer heat to another water loop that goes to the turbines.
In a pressurized water reactor, yes. In boiling water reactor, steam is formed in the reactor vessel and is sent directly to the turbines. While in operation, the turbine area is too radioactive for human presence. Fortunately, the radioactive byproducts carried in the steam are all very short lived, so it only takes a few minutes cool off.
my comment is oversimplified and partly joke, but nuclear power plants use mostly uranium fuel pellets, which are inserted in metal fuel rods and these into another metal container called fuel assemblies, before the are lowered into the water pool, so fuel and water don't touch each other, and the vapor cycle is a closed system
It also only would contaminate the things in water and not the water itself if i understand correctly
Well it can activate water itself and make F-18, H-3, and N-17 from just H20