The Dawn of Nuclear Power Pt. Deux?

softdown · July 2018

Liquid metal cooling offers great promise for making nuclear power much safer and more efficient. We all know that solar can't do more than supplement the grid until we realize great breakthroughs in energy/battery storage. In the meantime, far better nuclear power is already here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDCEjWNGv6Y

oil pan 4 · July 2018

Molten thorium salt.
Beta voltaic cells made from the "waste".

California is trying to spend 3 billion they don't have build a pump storage pipe line to hoover dam using power from west texas and eastern NM.

westbranch · July 2018

www.thoriumpowercanada.com

www.thoriumpowercanada.com/dbi-tpc-partnership/the-dbi-thorium-reactor/

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ypam77/canada-china-nuclear-power-candu-thorium

dennis461 · July 2018

stop dreaming, nuclear power is dead in USA
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-06-01/the-us-has-lost-the-nuclear-race

westbranch · July 2018

Dennis, I think you my be correct on the USA,.... but the new plants will be/are being done over seas. the last link I posted has a good review of 2 units going into China and India

softdown · July 2018

There are many ways to achieve fission from uranium or thorium. I think Trump wants to be the guy who brought back our economy from the abyss and good American coal is pretty cheap. The Japanese will be freaked out for the foreseeable future as well. Still leaves a big world out there.

I suspect that nuclear may offer the best chance for interstellar travel....someday. We upload our consciousness to AI and four light years doesn't seem so unattainable anymore.

Did I mention that I have several interests?

dennis461 · July 2018

I worked for a company in NJ that helped design instrumentation and controls for an early China plant. We brought over some young English speaking engineers, hired some more, sent people back and forth.

Guess what.

After we got the first design done, they cancelled their contract.

What is today's terminology, cut-and-paste?

westbranch · July 2018

For me the more Thorium and less Enriched Uranium, the better, no matter the make or model. I can not remember the #of years worth of spent Uranium mentioned in the last video in the last link, but it is almost a century's worth IIRC.. all just sitting in steel tanks some where in the US... hope they don't have a breach ... and then there is the contaminated-water storage at the Fukushima Generating plant. When will they run out of steel for the tanks?

softdown · July 2018

Using the depleted uranium for energy while cooling with liquid metal makes nuclear energy multiples safer and cheaper. Which I why I think it is time to reconsider our nose in the sand approach to nuclear energy.

BB. · July 2018

The current reactors were chosen/supported by governments because they had plutonium as a byproduct for nuclear weapons.
ry--
Now the world is "safer" (yea--sure), the use of new reactor designs and fuel are a real possibility to keep our present infrastructure and have cost efficient electrical energy. With less weapons grade materials and radioactive waste (I hope).

Cheap and clean energy is what keeps us from running horse/oxen/people powered farming and industries.

Burning coal releases more radiation than our nuclear infrastructure, and other problem materials too (major source of environmental mercury)--At least in times past, not sure how the "cleaner coal" plants are doing these days...

-Bill

mike95490 · August 2018

softdown said:

Using the depleted uranium for energy while cooling with liquid metal makes nuclear energy multiples safer and cheaper. Which I why I think it is time to reconsider our nose in the sand approach to nuclear energy.

depleted uranium is (wait for it) depleted uranium. most of what's active, is gone.
It still is a poisonous heavy metal like lead or mercury, but barely makes a geiger counter tick.

Estragon · August 2018

Makes good bullets though

mcgivor · August 2018

There was some graffiti painted across a bridge on Portabello Road in London England in 1981 that said "nuclear energy fades your genes"

softdown · August 2018

BB. said:

The current reactors were chosen/supported by governments because they had plutonium as a byproduct for nuclear weapons.
ry--
Now the world is "safer" (yea--sure), the use of new reactor designs and fuel are a real possibility to keep our present infrastructure and have cost efficient electrical energy. With less weapons grade materials and radioactive waste (I hope).

Cheap and clean energy is what keeps us from running horse/oxen/people powered farming and industries.

Burning coal releases more radiation than our nuclear infrastructure, and other problem materials too (major source of environmental mercury)--At least in times past, not sure how the "cleaner coal" plants are doing these days...

-Bill

Thorium is four times more abundant and also creates uranium 235 along the way. Was used successfully at....Oakridge? Not sure why is never took off.

Melting cities is pretty exciting stuff it seems.

Considering a Masters degree in energy options and production.....boredom is, well, boring.

softdown · August 2018

All four nuclear power incidents have occurred with old stations built prior to 1965. Safety protocols were pretty low and knowledge was also low.

Have come to believe that modern nuclear can be safe enough. It is easy to freak out about nuclear power of course. Twenty percent of US power comes from nuclear.

The Dawn of Nuclear Power Pt. Deux?

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