I live near the nuclear power plant in Salem, New Jersey and I see that big cloud of steam coming from the stack and wonder if it's radioactive, and if not, why not?
It is steam coming from the water that cools the fuel rods isn't it?
2007-07-30 23:46:02 · 12 answers · asked by opjames 4 in Environment ➔ Other - Environment
No the water/steam that cools the fuel rods is in a separate circuit from the water/steam circuit which drives the turbines and this again is a separate circuit from the water which condenses the steam exiting the steam turbines and is cooled in cooling towers which vent a plume of water vapour into the atmosphere. Heat is transferred via heat exchangers from the reactor circuit to the turbine circuit and from the condensing turbine steam to the cooling water circuit.
2007-07-31 00:21:06 · answer #1 · answered by Robert A 5 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Radioactive Steam
2016-12-18 14:12:39 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
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Those "stacks" are called cooling towers and are actually the least "nuclear" part of a power plant. Even fossil fuel plants have cooling towers. It is humid air exiting the cooling towers, which is a blend of standard dry air composition and water vapor. When this air condenses external to the tower, visible droplets of water form the steam you see. This doesn't pollute in any way other than thermal pollution and slight disruption of nature's water cycle and cloud formation. It doesn't make any landfill contents or change the difficulty of any species to breathe the air.
2016-04-08 04:40:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. Hot radioactive water is passed through a metal "heat exchanger". Normal water on the other side of metal walls carries off the heat.
The radioactive water is recirculated back into the plant. The radiation passing through the metal is not the right kind to make the normal water radioactive.
2007-07-31 02:04:24 · answer #4 · answered by Bob 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nuclear power plants do not have stacks. What you are probably talking about are the natural draft cooling towers, and what you are seeing is not steam (i.e. water vapor), but small drops of water (like a cloud). To answer your question, it is not radioactive.
2007-07-31 13:22:54 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
That water is isolated from the reactor water by an intermediate cooling loop, so there are two degrees of separation you might say. Its just river water thats taken into the cooling tower by the way. Unfortunately people watch shows like The Simpsons that shows that steam glowing green at night and think it reflects reality.
2007-07-31 02:10:42 · answer #6 · answered by Bill S 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
99.999% of the time... it will not be radioactive...
And then there was Three Mile Island...
And even the most radioactive THAT steam got (what little escaped) was so low level as to be insignificant.
The Chernobyl accident is impossible for US plants. We don't use a flamable metal for the primary coolant.
You CAN make a US plant blow... but you essentially have to drop a bunker-buster bomb on the reactor... (or violate every safeguard and operating proceedure in the book... all at the same time)
2007-07-31 02:50:07 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
It's not radioactive, however smoke coming from smokestacks of big coal-fired energy plants is toxic, and you can see a dramatic reduction of plant growth in the area where the smoke tends to precipitate it's pollutants. In other words, dead trees surround coal plants. Yay alternative energy!
2007-07-31 02:25:39 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
NO the water that comes in contact with the rods is in a closed system. The Stearn is from cooling that hot water in the closed system .
2007-07-31 04:47:47 · answer #9 · answered by JOHNNIE B 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
no -- it is the coolin of the water that has run through the condensors (making seam = power)
2007-07-31 02:31:48 · answer #10 · answered by John K 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋