Don’t turn it on? Critical means a reaction that is exactly self sustaining, i.e. a constant power level.
Comment on Microsoft Needs So Much Power to Train AI That It's Considering Small Nuclear Reactors
Z3k3@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Hi bing. How do I stop a nuclear reactor from going critical?
SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
MxM111@kbin.social 1 year ago
Buy MS office subscription.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
you turn it off.
“critical” is the normal operating state of reactor when it’s working. what you want to avoid is supercriticality, which means that power is rising. if it’s delayed supercritical but prompt subcritical, power rises and may or may not stop on its own at some point. when it’s prompt supercritical, you don’t even have time to ask nuclear-power.com/…/criticality-approach-startup-…
Ryumast3r@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Modern reactor design also pretty much makes runaway reactions nearly impossible, as in, you have to actually try to fuck it up.
Even Fukushima didn’t have a runaway reaction, it just lost coolant.