These reactors will not use water but work with liquid metal coolant.

The heat sinks are giant radiative arrays. Similar designs were proposed for spacecraft during the SNAP program in the 1960s and 1970s.

I've worked around BWRs but never been an operator at one (my fleet had a two unit station BWR, while the rest were PWRs.)

I stand corrected in that case. Does make perfect sense when you game it out, as you can basically put a shitload of positive reactivity into a BWR.

I have heard of situations similar to Chernobyl at naval plants (all rods out, waiting on xenon decay, below POAH), but again, that was all stories as I only operated new naval plants as well.

You’re answering your own question.

The low reactivity of the RBMK is why the moderator tipped control rods existed. The xenon-precluded startup is inherent in any reactor, regardless of enrichment as the xenon is from fission of U-235 and is a function of time at power (equilibrium xenon) or for a startup, time after shutdown (peak shutdown xenon.)

Repetitive startup/shutdowns that were being performed at Chernobyl would create the same xenon problems with any reactor, at any point in operating cycle if done excessively.

While you’ve got lots of answers, one that’s been left out is the slower production of “even isotope” plutonium.

Only about 2/3 of U-235 neutron absorption creates fission. The other 1/3 simply does nothing besides creating U-236. Ultimately, U-236 through a series of decay and more adsorption reactions becomes plutonium 238 (or 240) which can’t be separated from the Pu-239 that is used in nuclear weapons (basically, we can’t “enrich” plutonium like we can uranium.)

So, for a given amount of Pu-239 produced, the RBMK with lower initial enrichment has a “cleaner” material.

This is a gross simplification and there are other things that can affect this, but it’s part of the equation.

While you’ve got lots of answers, one that’s been left out is the slower production of “even isotope” plutonium.

Only about 2/3 of U-235 neutron absorption creates fission. The other 1/3 simply does nothing besides creating U-236. Ultimately, U-236 through a series of decay and more adsorption reactions becomes plutonium 238 (or 240) which can’t be separated from the Pu-239 that is used in nuclear weapons (basically, we can’t “enrich” plutonium like we can uranium.)

So, for a given amount of Pu-239 produced, the RBMK with lower initial enrichment has a “cleaner” material.

This is a gross simplification and there are other things that can affect this, but it’s part of the equation.

It’s “cheaper” not in the sense of the control rods themselves, but the reactor.

The graphite tips were key to getting an RBMK to operate without either enriched uranium (expensive) or a fancy moderator (heavy water, likewise expensive.)

By putting a couple inches of positive reactivity on the control rod, you can create a localized higher reactivity which can get the neutron flux high enough to “jump start” the reactor. This is necessary in natural uranium reactors, as the amount of fissile U-235 is very low.

While Russia absolutely had the capability to enrich uranium, there are other “benefits” from the RBMK design which make natural uranium reactors preferable, specifically their ability to produce plutonium for weapons. This seemed to have been left out of the discussion in the miniseries as well.

You’re leaving out the xenon precluded startup conditions which allowed them to pull rods out farther than they should have.

It’s a pretty good design, economically speaking, as it’s the one reactor design that doesn’t require fuel enrichment or a fancy moderator like heavy water to function.

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US defense policy towards Taiwan has really not been tied very well to Taiwan's advanced semiconductor technology. I think that kids believe this to be the only thing, but it is a far longer history.

There was absolutely no industry of value when Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons in the mainland to stabilize the control of the KMT led ROC there in the 1950s. In many ways, the US commitment to Taiwanese sovereignty today is less than when it had virtually zero hi tech industries.