Nuclear bubble likely to recur

Press, 7 April 1979, Page 8

Nuclear bubble likely to recur

NZPA Washington! When the technicians} begin to lower the pressure, at the crippled nuclear reac-; tor at Three Mile Island, the 1 hydrogen bubble that nearly, caused an evacuation over! the week-end is likely toj recur, according to new cal-} culations by the Nuclear! Regulatory Commission.

Darrel Eisenhut, the deputy director of the N.R.C.'s division of operating reactors. said Government laboratories were working around the clock to try to understand the processes that made the first bubble disappear and caused other chemical changes inside the reactor.

“If you generate another hydrogen bubble, you would certainly hope it would go out by ’the same path.” said Mr Eisenhut. He added that a task force of NRC scientists, called the ‘‘bubble group,” was working with a long equation that attempts to explain the bubble-form-ing process.

The original bubble contained 28 cu.m. (1000 cubic feet) of highly pressurized hydrogen that the N.R.C. feared might explode inside

the reactor. There are still about 252 cum (9000 cubic feet) of dissolved hydrogen in the reactor’s cooling (water.

Some of it,- according to Mr Eisenhut. is likely to evolve into a new bubble when the attempt is made to bring the plant to a depressurised, cold shutdon n state.

On Wednesday the manufacturer of the nuclear plant, Babcock and Wilcox, presented a plan to the N.R,C. to begin the depressurizing attempt in about five days, bringing the pressure- down slowly over the next five days.

Abortion clinics and necologists say they are handling hundreds of calls from worried pregnant women living near the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Most nuclear-health ex- ■ perts say the radiation leaking from the troubled nuclear plant is not enough to » threaten healthy people.

Pregnant women and young children, however, are considered vulnerable to radiation’s effects.