Russia Unveils Detailed Plans To Build 21 New Nuclear Power Units By 2030

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90. An EXTREMELY small amount...

Kelvin inquires
Not being picky, but I do pay attention to the way government can use, and misuse words, so I am cautious. If "most" of the radiation stays in the reactor, what is found outside the reactor?

An extremely small amount can be found outside the reactor.

For example, a very small amount of those impurities "plate out" on the pumps and steam generators. As you understand, that radioactive material won't make the pump or the steam generator itself radioactive; but impurities can attach themselves to these parts.

In his book, "Physics for Future Presidents", Professor Muller addresses the issue of radioactivity being "contagious". Radioactivity can't make atoms that are not radioactive originally, radioactive because they "caught" radioactivity. However, radioactive material can contaminate something. Professor Muller analogizes that to a clean material getting dirty.

However, that contamination can be cleaned off. You may recall some time back in the news, and as a discussion on this board; Canada's Ontario Hydro was going to ship some old replaced steam generators from the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario to Sweden for decontamination. The metal of the steam generators themselves was NOT radioactive. However, some of the radioactive impurities were clinging to the walls of the tubes of the steam generator.

The plan was for the Swedish firm Studsvik ( part of the Swedish nuclear industry ) to clean the steam generators. Those steam generators were each the size of a school bus. When cleaned of radioactive material, the amount of radioactive material would fit inside the volume of a pill bottle. This small pill bottle would be suspended in the middle of a 55 gallon drum and the void would be filled in with concrete. Then the 55 gallon drum of concrete with a pill bottle sized bit of short-lived radioactive material would be shipped back to the Bruce plant to be stored. The now radioactivity free steam generator would then have its metal recycled as recyclable iron.

However, that plan didn't materialize because of objections about shipping the slightly radioactive steam generators to Sweden. So Ontario Hydro has to store these school bus sized old steam generators; when they could have just been storing a couple 55 gallon drums of concrete, each with a pill-bottle sized amount of short-lived radioactive material inside.

So you are correct. Most does mean "most" radioactivity stays in the reactor. A very small amount; as above; a pill-bottle sized quantity of short-lived radioactive material for every school bus sized chunk of reactor cooling plumbing.

So most of the radioactive material in the PWR is to be found IN the reactor vessel. A very small amount is to be found outside the reactor vessel; but INSIDE the containment building.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

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