Jáchymov 227 zentners [11.35 tonnes] were produced), nickel, bismuth and uranium ore were also extracted. There were also other industries: an enormous tobacco factory employed 1,000 women. In addition, there was the manufacture of gloves and corks and of bobbin lace. On 31 March 1873 the town almost entirely burnt down. At the end of the 19th century, Marie Curie discovered, in tons of pitchblende ore containing uraninite from Joachimsthal, the element radium, for which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Until the First World War this was the foremost source of radium in the world. The first radon spa
Fuel element failure entering the coolant, the pellets of fuel are normally encased in tubes of a corrosion-resistant metal alloy (normally Zircaloy for water-cooled reactors). Those elements are then assembled into bundles to allow good handling and cooling. As the fuel fissions, the radioactive fission products are also contained by the cladding, and the entire fuel element can then be disposed of as nuclear waste when the reactor is refueled. If, however, the cladding is damaged, those fission products (which are not immobile in the uranium dioxide matrix) can enter the reactor coolant or storage water and can be carried out of the