Talk:Pressurized heavy-water reactor

Unsigned remark

This article seems to be more of a of two alternative techniques than a description of comparison than PHWR.

U238 will release much energy when it is split. That requires an extraneous source of neutrons. It is not explained why water absorbs too many neutrons. Are they absorbed by H, converting to D, or randomly scattered meaning that too many escape the fuel core?. In the case of heavy water, neutrons emerging from the core are, on average, reflected back towards the core, since deuterium is twice as heavy as a neutron. It makes no sense that deuterium is an unwanted byproduct in the PLWR type, yet deuterium is very expensive to produce for the PHWR type.27.33.246.67 (talk) 23:19, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Suggested merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This article contains a great deal of excellent material relevant to heavy water reactors in general, but which is not specific to the popular high-pressure design choice used in CANDU. This material should be moved to the Heavy water reactor article, and what remains at this article (if anything), should be just enough to make clear the differences between high-pressure and lower-pressure designs of heavy water reactors, which this article fails to do at present. We might also want to investigate whether general material at the CANDU article might better be merged into this article. --arkuat (talk) 04:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we wait or merge only one section. I accept your thesis that the section "pupose of using heavy water" should be merged into the heavy water reactor article. Would you be willing to move the merge header to just that section?

In regards to the resulting "loss of content," I hope to be able to boost the content in this article with information on some of the different PHWR designs, especially if more information on the Indian reactors becomes available after the implementation of the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act and related IAEA Safegaurds Agreement. I suppose what I'm really saying is that this is a work in progress from my perspective. Revr J (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge. I don't see any reason why all HWR's cannot be described under a single article. None of the articles involved are lengthy enough to require splitting the topic into sub-articles. Heavy water reactor is currently a stub, and this article is still fairly short. I'm not familiar with Low Pressure HWR's, can someone provide a link? Mishlai (talk) 11:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge was done apparently on 20 August 2011. 70.24.246.151 (talk) 07:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Spelling

Can we please spell the title of the page right. It is pressurized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.35.203.2 (talk) 19:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Pressurised is the British variant, so both are correct. Mishlai (talk) 11:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

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Pressurised heavy water reactor → Heavy water reactor – Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC) This article doesn't specifically discuss pressurized reactors, instead heavy-water reactors of all types. The page should be moved to reflect this. The destination page was a merge source and should not be deleted. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 23:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment there's a big problem with this article, since HWR was merged into it. Undo the merge and then merge generic information about HWR to the HWR article. After that, see if there is a need for a separate PHWR article. If not, do a second merge. (as separate steps, so we can examine the merge history more properly) 70.24.246.151 (talk) 07:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Nuclear Proliferation

I don't understand why the ability to use unenriched uranium is listed as increasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. It's impossible to build a nuclear weapon using unenriched uranium; you need enrichment capability. If anything, this characteristic should make PHWRs less likely to contribute to proliferation. Is there something I'm missing?

The second characteristic, the ease of obtaining plutonium and tritium, is a more sensible concern. Wristshot (talk) 19:28, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Rewrote the section to clarify. It could still really use some sources, though. A2soup (talk) 21:24, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Two remarks:

1) Production of plutonium my be a problem, butseldom in power reactors since they irradiate the fuel for to long a time. If you irradite the fuel for a long time there will be to much heavier putonium isotopes for use as bomb material(it is not bomb grade plutonium)(that is thereason for CANDU-reaktor and RBMKtype (Tjernobyl-type), they can be reloded whithout stopping power production, also the reason for Swedish Marviken reactor, never started but built with reloding capability under power. By reloding after short productiopn (weeks at most) you can get usable bomb grade plutonium!)(There is no other reason for reloading under power since you have to stop the steam system repeatedly, max power period about 18 months or parts of the steam system will weld together and must be scrapped if you need to open up a valve as an example!) Low preassure reactors ar easily realoded under power and are therefore a risk for bomb profilation. BUT, since centrifuge enrichment works so well it is easier and cheaper to make uranium bombs, also "safer" (kind of), you can trust Hiroshima type U235 bomb to eplode whithout testing, plutomium bombs are trickier, both USA and Sviet have had duds when testing!

2) For plutonium bombs you need Tritium for igniter (to produce neutrons). It is true that heawy water will produce tritium, but miniscule. Normal metod is neutron iridation of Litium! High production! Easy to concentrate!Seniorsag (talk) 15:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)