EPTThe Green Nuke - LFTR - Page 2
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EternaLLegacy
United States410 Posts
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Tanukki
Finland579 Posts
I think it's a great and underused technology. Probably because it still bears the same stigmas traditional nuclear power does. After all it still produces some radiation, and you still need a bit of the weapons grade stuff to get it going. | ||
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
On January 25 2012 11:59 EternaLLegacy wrote: Peter Schiff had some former NASA nuclear engineers on his show the other day, talking about LTFRs and their company. They're raising funds right now, and we'll have to see how it goes. I don't know much about the science but if NASA guys are putting their life on the line for it, it's gotta be promising. That was Kirk Sorensen and Flibe Energy! Thanks for the heads up I had never heard it. http://www.blubrry.com/schiffpaid/1271053/kirk-sorensen-interview/ | ||
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Zaros
United Kingdom3692 Posts
On January 25 2012 12:08 Tanukki wrote: They have thorium reactors in India too right? And there was one in Chernobyl too if I recall correctly. I think it's a great and underused technology. Probably because it still bears the same stigmas traditional nuclear power does. After all it still produces some radiation, and you still need a bit of the weapons grade stuff to get it going. dont put chernobyl's name next to anything good people will run away scared! | ||
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TotalBalanceSC2
Canada475 Posts
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
On January 25 2012 12:08 Tanukki wrote: They have thorium reactors in India too right? And there was one in Chernobyl too if I recall correctly. I think it's a great and underused technology. Probably because it still bears the same stigmas traditional nuclear power does. After all it still produces some radiation, and you still need a bit of the weapons grade stuff to get it going. The Thorium reactors in India are still solid-fuel reactors, so they are still Pressurized Water Reactors. They are Generation III, much safer than Fukushima Daichi which was a Generation I reactor, but LFTR is even safer than that. Chernobyl I do not think is accurate, but I could be wrong. Definitely the one that melted down at Chernobyl was not a LFTR. But to Russia's credit, Russia is currently the only country to be successfully operating a LMFBR, which is the BN-600 reactor. But that only shows how incredibly difficult it is to operate an LMFBR. Yes you need the "weapons grade stuff" but it is used as a seed at the very start of operation of the reactor, and then not needed again. U-235 (weapons grade) is currently used everyday all over the world as nuclear fuel because of our failure to adopt LFTR in the 1970s. | ||
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Sanctimonius
United Kingdom861 Posts
Question to the guy above who mentioned thorium is expensive now - surely economics says that prices are low if the market is flooded or if a product is undesirable. Making a demand for something drives up a price, so wouldn't the price of thorium remain very high? It wouldn't be in the interests of the industry to make too much thorium available... | ||
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
On January 25 2012 12:49 Sanctimonius wrote: It's a decent idea but I'm not expecting to see any LFTR reactors anytime soon. After decades of nuclear mismanagment from the various industries public opinion isn't exactly at an all-time high, and this will be sold as modern nuclear power. Add to that the current nuclear industry is based on uranium, I would say they have a vested interest in not seeing any competition, and they don't have the money to be building an entire new industry. So discounting private start-up (who has the money?) or civil projects, as someone said above the military is the most likely way for thorium. Except you can't make a thorium bomb, so where is the incentive? Still, opposition to thorium will change as we exhaust other possibilities andd resources. Question to the guy above who mentioned thorium is expensive now - surely economics says that prices are low if the market is flooded or if a product is undesirable. Making a demand for something drives up a price, so wouldn't the price of thorium remain very high? It wouldn't be in the interests of the industry to make too much thorium available... It is impossible to limit the amount of thorium available, we already have too much. But Thorium does not obey the economic laws you quoted above because it is an ore and requires processing which is very expensive and if there isnt a market for it no one invests in the processing facilities and getting processed ore becomes very expensive. The military are interested in LFTR for mobile modular power supplies that can power a base in the middle of the desert or other remote locations, not for bombs. I would not characterize nuclear power as being decades of mismanagement, though I definitely would characterize Tepco as that. Nuclear power in the United States has never killed anyone, ever. Coal annually kills over 10,000 people. Annually!! So while you are right that public opinion is against nuclear, I wouldn't say decades of mismanagement is a fair characterization. Nuclear power actually has one of the safest track records of any industry, but public opinion reflects the opposite. | ||
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WTFZerg
United States704 Posts
Not to say that it is not neat, but the problem with nuclear energy is not the manner of production, it's the general public (read: idiots) outlook on nuclear energy. We should have been on a mostly nuclear grid a while ago. I read an interesting comment-conversation a few months back when they had an article about greenpeace guys breaking into a French nuclear facility. "Well, what if they had gotten shot? It would have doubled the number of nuclear energy-related deaths in the last decade!" | ||
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Ercster
United States603 Posts
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mrafaeldie12
Brazil537 Posts
Of course there is a lot of investment on nuclear energy and its war potential so it will probably take a while for this to be truly a "mainstream" energy source. | ||
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
On January 25 2012 12:56 WTFZerg wrote: It's a very, very old concept. Not to say that it is not neat, but the problem with nuclear energy is not the manner of production, it's the general public (read: idiots) outlook on nuclear energy. We should have been on a mostly nuclear grid a while ago. I read an interesting comment-conversation a few months back when they had an article about greenpeace guys breaking into a French nuclear facility. "Well, what if they had gotten shot? It would have doubled the number of nuclear energy-related deaths in the last decade!" lol yes good point I could not agree more | ||
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Cuce
Turkey1127 Posts
almost any form of invesment in nuclear enegry has a return of nuclear. Disagreement agains nuclear power is not foolish. its just simple. If such technology would allow us to have nuclear energy without letting people develop weapons over it.. fine with me. | ||
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abalam
Switzerland316 Posts
Apparently that would be solved with these new reactors which, in my point of view, is the biggest advantage of this technology. How exactly do they burn up nuclear waste and why do points 4 & 5 seem somewhat contradictive (couldn't you just burn up the new waste?) I'd be glad if someone could answer my questions. | ||
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Sotamursu
Finland612 Posts
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Flameberger
United States227 Posts
Sounds cool though, There are such extraordinary amounts of energy in even small amounts of matter, finding a safe and efficient means of harvesting it seems like a great way to go. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On January 25 2012 10:34 Perdac Curall wrote: Excellent question, and this is covered extensively in those two documentaries, but the short answer is that Thorium is useless for making a nuclear weapon, and in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War they wanted to generate power and make bombs, so they chose U-235 and the U-238-->Pu-239 fuel cycles, both of which can be used for electricity and for bombs. This doesn't make much sense. For the US, sure. But tons of countries, all the countries in scandinavia for example, use nuclear fission power without any intention of making any weapons, Sweden hasn't had a nuclear weapon program since the early years of the cold war. Why are we not using thorium reactors here? | ||
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nalgene
Canada2153 Posts
10000 fissions ---> 10000 instead of 9999 you can only use 0.7% uranium in a reaction compared to 100% of thorium and the latter is also many times more abundant it's also much more clean | ||
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
On January 25 2012 17:41 abalam wrote: I always thought that the actual problem of old nuclear plants was the nuclear waste and not safety because I find it somewhat irresponsible to "produce" something that you can't really dispose of (storing it away for a long period of time is not really disposing). Apparently that would be solved with these new reactors which, in my point of view, is the biggest advantage of this technology. How exactly do they burn up nuclear waste and why do points 4 & 5 seem somewhat contradictive (couldn't you just burn up the new waste?) I'd be glad if someone could answer my questions. The key is understanding that nuclear waste is not waste. It would be better to call it "unspent fuel." 99% of it is simply broken up, brittle Uranium Oxide that is no good for use anymore in a solid fuel reactor. But it is still fissile, so it can be easily converted for use in a LFTR. And since LFTR uses liquid not solid fuels, the fuel stays in the reactor until it is used up. This is why LFTRs can burn up existing "nuclear waste" without generating any new waste of its own. In reality LFTRs do produce some actual nuclear waste, known as transuranics, but the amount produced over a decade is miniscule (as mentioned in the OP, a few millionths of a gram over ten years for a 40MW "mini" LFTR.) Here is a good discussion of LFTRs waste profile: | ||
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
On January 25 2012 18:16 Tobberoth wrote: This doesn't make much sense. For the US, sure. But tons of countries, all the countries in scandinavia for example, use nuclear fission power without any intention of making any weapons, Sweden hasn't had a nuclear weapon program since the early years of the cold war. Why are we not using thorium reactors here? I don't know, it is an excellent question, since all Scandinavian countries have large Thorium deposits. Perhaps you should be calling your politicians in Sweden asking them why they never pursued this. Any moderately-sized developed country should be able to develop LFTR using their existing national resources. | ||
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