Nuclear meltdown: Encyclopedia II - Nuclear meltdown - Effects

Nuclear meltdown - Effects

The effects of a nuclear meltdown depend on the safety features designed into a reactor. A modern reactor is designed both to make a meltdown exceedingly unlikely, and to contain one should it occur.

In a modern reactor, a nuclear meltdown, whether partial or total, will be contained inside the reactor's containment structure. Thus (in the unlikely event that no other disasters occur) while the meltdown will severely damage the reactor itself, possibly contaminating the whole structure with highly-radioactive material, a meltdown alone will generally not lead to significant radiation release or danger to the public. The effects are therefore primarily economic (see [1]).

In practice, however, a nuclear meltdown is often part of a larger chain of disasters. For example, in the Chernobyl accident, by the time the core melted, there had already been a large steam explosion and graphite fire and major release of radioactive contamination (as with almost all Soviet reactors, there was no containment structure at Chernobyl).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Effects", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki