- Joined
- Jan 2, 2022
- Location
- England
With enough C4 it can be done. Sure, it's hard for John Q Public, but the Russians could use a bunker buster.@Friendly Engineer
It’s very very hard to blow up a pressure vessel from the outside.
The Russians could blow it up if they wanted to, although I agree they probably wouldn't.
I also agree with you that a hydrogen explosion is extremely unlikely at Zaporizhzhia NPP. In my original post, I was simply acknowledging that hydrogen explosions can happen.
The VVER-1000 reactor has a negative void co-efficient, meaning in the event of coolant system failure and water boils, the steam can't moderate the neutrons so the hotter a reactor gets the less fission events occur. It's nearly impossible it could reach temperatures for significant zirconium catalysed hydrolysis.
Zaporizhzhia has passive autocatalytic recombiners, so in the event of hydrogen escaping the hermetically sealed reactor into the containment building, the hydrogen would be removed, not allowing for a dangerous buildup.
Point being, it's not going to cause problems unless the Russians blow it up (which they probably won't)
