Comments

To markbart7: In response to your comment about the lubricants leaking into the sodium coolant: Do you think that it would be possible to use a magnet driven pump? One that uses magnets to suspend and turn the impeller, thus reducing the need for lubricants and, the possibilty of coolant/lubricant interaction. This type of pump would have nearly no friction between moving parts. Or do you think this type of pump would not be reliable enough to use in such a critical component? A pump such as this would require multiple redundant power sources. If you lost power and the pumps stoped functioning it would be Chernobyl all over again. The power would have to come from an outside source. When the reactor is offline and not making power, the pumps would still have to run durring shut down and start up procedures. I ask this to markbart7, as he seems to be the only one that didn't knock the article and had something to add. For the others, I, too, am disapointed by the lack of information in the "article" but, it may be that this is a lead in to another, more in depth, piece in an upcoming issue. It's also possible that there was not much more information to include right now, and Michael Moyer was simply looking for opinions or ideas on the subject.