Talk:TRIGA

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Regarding the Teller quote about children[edit]

The original quote about graduate students with the Teller 2001 reference was correct so I have reverted it accordingly. Freeman Dyson paraphrased the idea with a more flowery quote in Disturbing the Universe (1979 https://archive.org/details/disturbinguniver0000dyso/page/97/mode/1up). I find the one directly from Teller more readily quotable rather than the Dyson-summarizing-Teller quote. Ntouran (talk) 01:12, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have doubts and this needs a citation[edit]

Although a negative temperature coefficient is inherently safe, I believe it is inaccurate to state that this makes a meltdown impossible.

"Reed College features a Triga research reactor. It is the only nuclear reactor that is almost completely staffed by undergraduates." I have doubts and this needs a citation.wagsbags (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

12 year-old post, but needs answering nonetheless.

First point, no, the TRIGA is inherently safe. Reactivity decreases sharply with fuel temperature, and that, according to the reliable sources cited in the article, makes it literally impossible to melt a TRIGA down. TRIGAs have been pulsed to momentary power surges of 22 gigawatts without damage to the reactor. TRIGAs were run on very highly-enriched naval submarine-grade U-235 until the 1970s, when recognition of the proliferation hazard of having weapons-grade U-235 in a civilian setting (theoretically, a terrorist outfit could run off with the fuel elements and reform the fuel into a nuclear weapon) led to reformulation of the fuel rods to a much lower enrichment of U-235.

Second point, someone (perhaps Wagsbags, who complained of the matter) removed the unsourced text "Reed College features a Triga research reactor. It is the only nuclear reactor that is almost completely staffed by undergraduates.". Which is fine by me, although MIT has licensed undergraduate reactor operators for at least one of its research reactors, neither of which are the inherently safe TRIGA, so Reed running its TRIGA with undergraduate student operators isn't a doubtful proposition to me. However, if it couldn't be sourced, the text needed to go away, anyway. --loupgarous (talk) 11:16, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]