Now we are going to speak from the point of view of the industry risks
compared to other conventional sources of electricity production.
A good simile of the accumulation of energy in the reactor core
is imaging that a large dam and all the water stored in it
possesses a huge amount of potential energy.
Because the reactor core has accumulated the fuel for a long time
and an instantaneous release could have devastating effects downstream.
In our case, we have to think that after refueling,
we have enough energy to produce for 18 to 24 months.
Also if we continue with our dam example,
we could say that it's essential to keep the radioactive material contained,
because if it is released it can provoke damage on other barriers,
or even, release some amount to the atmosphere.
As we said, if our dam breaks it can damage everything downstream,
other dams, houses, the environment, even people.
Finally, another special feature
regarding nuclear industry is the residual heat.
Even after shutting down the reactor,
we are going to be producing residual heat
that is going to need cooling for a long time.
That is going to decrease with time,
but it is enough to provoke accidents.
In our case,
the fuel cladding can be affected by the steam-cladding reaction
which produces hydrogen and is highly exothermic.
So we will have the need for cooling,
and also, the risk of an explosion will increase.
To see an example, let's say that we have John here.
And he's like the nuclear industry, he is calm.
But everything can change at any moment.
John is working and Mary comes in and tells him how to do his job better.
Then he can have other problems,
like his computer starts to fail or to go slow.
So he starts to feel more pressure.
After Mary, his boss comes trying to put him under pressure.
Pressing him to have his job finished.
Then obviously John is going to start to be angry.
If the situation is not solved,
we can get that John, obviously, could burst in rage.
After this, please click on the link below
and see an explaining video about the Three Mile Island accident.
and how a set of different failures led to a great accident.